All Seems Beautiful
by Fizzing Wizard
Summary: After a bizarre incident at the camp, Taichi learns he's vanishing from his own world and becoming part of the Digital World. Meanwhile the Chosen take hits from every corner: the Spore Children, plus an enemy or several on the digital plane. To top that off, they can't keep their personal lives from tangling. With lives at risk, the Chosen must put themselves to the test.
1. A Changing Wind

**All Seems Beaut****iful**

_The First Act: _

The child who hides plays seeks to find,  
and when within the light is found,  
invokes fire to enshroud; prophet-blind  
looks upon the mountain's crown.

Surrogate jar, gaze upon him  
smiling; that effervescent well –  
Seek you his soul, fettered in sin,  
and for your heart shall toll the bell.

As for that young Euphemia,  
so consecrated a chalice,  
lock away the candelabra;  
in the dark consume with madness.

'Neath dome of brass, o'er hollowed sea,  
a cantata raise – strike – awake!  
Stygian howl, postmortem shriek  
shall the blood-born tomb desecrate.

* * *

**Chapter One**

**A Changing Wind**

** 07.24.2006**

** MON**

The heat wave that flooded Japan in the summer of 2006 turned the city of Odaiba from the heart of Tokyo tourism into a giant pancake griddle, frying its denizens along with it. Even the Rainbow Bridge seemed to sway in the worst of each torrid afternoon, blanketed in parched air. Meteorologists were taken by surprise; they'd hardly expected another scorcher of such magnitude after temperatures had climbed into the 100 degrees Fahrenheit as recently as 2004. For a few weeks the news broadcasted nothing but the latest concerning global warming and melting polar ice caps on the brink of joining the ocean. Skeptics pointing out that the wave was localized merely to Japan were duly ignored, and their arguments rendered moot when temperatures in the U.S.A. soared even higher that same season. Other countries swiftly followed suit, though Europe, still reeling from the effects of their last devastating heat wave in 2003, was blessedly skipped over.

No one in Tokyo had forgotten what it felt like when bare feet sizzled on sun-baked asphalt, or the midday peak brought on vertigo and fainting spells. Bottled water flew from the shelves of convenience stores within hours after they were set out – Pocari Sweat, Dasani, Ice Mountain in eco-friendly bottles. Customers crowded the malls and cinemas, paying to watch everything from box office hits to the most obscure B-rated Indie films just to relax in the air conditioned theaters. In fear of heatstroke, parents shuttered their children indoors. With the parks a forbidden pleasure to them, Odaiba's youth found themselves longing for their long-awaited summer break to end.

It was this lack of stimulation that drove Yagami Taichi, a near-Internet virgin who typed at a rate of 30 words per minute, to plunk himself in front of his father's computer and switch it on. It was too hot for soccer (not that he hadn't tried), too hot to cook, too hot to even wear a shirt –his had found its new home over the arm of the couch around eleven A.M. Misora Hibari's husky voice lilted softly from the kitchen radio as he twirled around in the rolling desk chair, waiting for the computer to boot up.

His best friend, Izumi Koushirou, who had built his own PC at the age of 14, and who Taichi suspected had to be bodily forced away from the monitor by three armed imperial stormtroopers to eat and sleep, shot him a message almost the very instant he logged on his neglected Instant Messenger account.

**koshiro_han89: I thought for sure you'd be sleeping.**

Taichi fought the urge to roll his eyes more as an act of self-discipline than any delusion that Koushirou could see him. (His friend had once threatened to hide a Webcam in Taichi's house. Over the following two weeks, Taichi made sure to finish his homework every day.)

Typing made his fingers cramp up, which he considered to be as traumatic as a post-practice charley horse. (By some miracle, he never had this problem with his video games.) He spent a moment flexing them before hitting Send.

** soccergami: hi u. and its the middle of the day**

** koshiro_han89: Even so, I assumed the planet would hurl into the sun before you resurrected your IM.**

The response appeared within seconds, as if Koushirou didn't even need to glance at the keyboard. Taichi asked himself why he'd bothered logging on at all. He was quicker typing on his cell phone, and more of his friends bothered with text messaging than IM.

But the terms had been set, and Yagami Taichi was never one to back down from a challenge – even if Koushirou had no idea they were competing. To his chagrin, Koushirou's next message arrived before he finished writing his own.

**koshiro_han89: Though, at the rate this heat wave is going, a quick death in which we burn up without time to notice might be preferable to slowly liquefying into anthropomorphic goo á la the Wicked Witch of the West.**

"Hikari!" Taichi shouted.

His fifteen-year-old sister shuffled into the doorway, which he'd left open to let fresh air stream in from the family room. She wore a pink spaghetti-strap shirt and cut-off jean shorts. Taichi considered asking her what had happened to the rest of her pants until he caught her scowling at him with her rarely used but no less potent Little-Sister petulance. He wisely swallowed the thought and shot her a grin. The sultry heat had made cavemen of them all.

"What is it? I'm going out." Hikari sounded impatient, which was unlike her, and another reason not to test her right now.

"Going out where?"

"Shopping with Miyako-san. We won't be long."

"What does _'anthro…peeomorph'_ mean?" he asked, squinting hard at the screen.

Hikari pointed to the cluttered computer desk. "There's a dictionary over there," she said. "You've memorized the alphabet by now, right?"

Taichi flicked a gum eraser at her retreating back, then banged his forehead against the keyboard with enough force to rattle his father's Yankees pencil holder. Fine, if she wanted to be difficult – see if he saved her any of the last few gingersnaps in the cupboard.

He heard the front door click-snap closed and Hikari's footsteps pad down the hall. For a long moment he gazed blankly at the screen, where Koushirou's words bellowed at him in stark royal blue.

**soccergami: its 2 hot 2 sleep**

The kitchen telephone rang, summoning Taichi out of his chair to drag himself into the hall. He picked up the phone and spoke into the receiver:

"Hello, Yagami residence."

"Taichi-san, it's Koushirou."

He held the phone away and stared at it. "Koushirou?" he sputtered as soon as the shock wore off. "What the – you forfeiting?"

"What?"

"Never mind."

"You were taking so long to reply on IM that I decided to call you."

"So glad to hear you missed the sound of my sexy voice."

He heard Koushirou give a breathy chuckle and grinned to himself. Koushirou didn't laugh often enough. In fact, it took a very dedicated jokester to coax him into smiling, and even _that_ required nothing less than enormous shoes, trick bouquets, and pie-slathered faces. Taichi had once made a New Year's resolution to see how often he could make Koushirou choke on his own tongue laughing. He'd made it in front of everyone at his mother's annual holiday gathering, and then he'd dropped his pants and flaunted his Spider-man boxers. To his credit, Koushirou had, in fact, laughed.

"Are you surviving the heat wave?" Koushirou asked. "I feel like I haven't seen you in ages."

"Sheesh, I know," Taichi said. "Usually I'm all over you this time of year – liberating you from that hermit's hovel you call your room. You all hunched over your desk in the gloom, waiting for me to come get you and show you the world beyond the darkness."

"You're going all 'Allegory of the Cave' on me, and I don't like it." Taichi pictured Koushirou glowering at his computer screen. "What you mean is you take advantage of your superior muscle power to abduct my unobliging self from my home and take me to whatever den of iniquity strikes your fancy. Like to play skeet ball or, or… chase pigeons, or check if the manikins in the shops are anatomically correct."

"And they _were!"_

Koushirou snorted into the phone. Delighted, Taichi stunned the kettle with one of his blinding Happy-Pill grins.

"But Taichi-san, in all seriousness: there's something weird about this heat wave," Koushirou said after a pause. "As in abnormal, beware-of-otherworldly-vortexes weird."

"Sure there is. When I find people spontaneously liquefying into anthro – anthropo – anthromo –"

"It's _anthropomorphic,_ and I was kidding. But this really does remind me of the weather anomalies back in the summer of '99."

_"The summer of love,"_ Taichi purred, but his mind drifted to memories of that early August, when he'd found himself in the middle of an adventure more souped up than any video game, Assassin's Creed included. There were still times when he woke up surprised to find himself at home, and not lying on a makeshift bed of enormous green fronds with the sun rising over the dour summit of Infinity Mountain.

"It's been four years since Daisuke and the others were Chosen," he said. "You're thinking we're about due?"

"Well, that's one possibility, but it's not like I expect new Chosen popping up every few years to become routine. I haven't noticed any new activity with the Digital Gates or even a hint of trouble in Gennai's emails. If there are any new recruits, they're doing a good job of hiding."

As usual, Taichi breezed over the fact that Koushirou regularly corresponded with the Digital World's resident guru the way normal kids did with friends over a long distance. He wandered over to the kitchenette and opened a cupboard. "Yeah, and besides, that first year we got _snow_ in summer."

"It's not impossible that this excessive heat is related to Digiworld." Koushirou's tone was soft and pensive. Taichi imagined the gears churning in his head, clicking and locking, fitting together the whole picture. "I may be overreacting, but I have some basis for that. I just received an email from Willis in which he'd noted that everywhere the heat wave is at its worst, there is a Digital Gate."

Frowning, Taichi tucked the phone under his chin as he struggled with a can of tomato soup with ponzu. "Okay. That's weird."

"Yeah. I doubt it's a coincidence. Still, it doesn't necessarily mean trouble."

"No?"

"It could just mean –"

"Hang on – engaged in mortal combat with the soup can – fricking lunatics who invent these death-contraptions –"

"… As I was saying, it could mean that the presence of Digital Gates somehow magnifies the temperature in those areas. A natural phenomenon – nothing for us to be concerned about."

"I sense a dangling _'but.'"_ Taichi cursed as the seal popped off the can and chunky soup splattered on his bare chest. He fumbled for a paper towel.

"If there _is_ a problem, it's something we should investigate quickly. Maybe we can even put a damper on it before it becomes a threat. It's not like any of us have as much time for saving the world as we used to. And considering it's summer break –"

"Makes sense. So I guess you want to check out the Gates at the old camp grounds and Hikarigaoka with me?"

"That would be ideal. I doubt we'll find anything, but better safe than sorry."

"Okay. I'll round up whoever I can find to join us. It'll be good to see you."

"You too, Taichi-san."

"Don't forget to wear sunblock, you hermit."

"Shut up and make sure you eat that soup after pounding it into submission."

Taichi pulled out a chair and rested his chin on the countertop. The microwave hummed, warming his soup.

His mother had set an arrangement of blue irises and cheerful yellow tulips by the windowsill. Sunlight peeked through the tender underside of each petal. He looked at them, or past them, his fingers tingling like red hot needle pricks under his skin.

A new adventure.

He grabbed the phone and punched in Sora's number.

* * *

There were three tricks Hikari knew to tell if Inoue Miyako was in a good mood. The first depended on her work schedule. Retail, Miyako believed, was not her calling, but what could she do? Her family owned the local I-Mart. She could scout for a job elsewhere, but this was conveniently located on the first floor of her apartment complex, and there weren't many places that would jump at the chance to hire students fresh out of junior high school. Plus, certain perks came along with the job: she didn't have to worry about performance reviews, and since all the employees were in the family, there wasn't much chance of her getting fired.

(She had, at one mentally-scarring interval, tried her hand at babysitting. She returned with a Band-Aid on her arm where the devil's three-year-old changeling son had dug his teeth right through her skin. Even so, she claimed it wasn't the brat that drove her away, but his mother, who kept sniffing her as if her nose could detect bad intentions, and who kept a collection of owl figurines in a glass case so that they were always, _always _watching.)

Trick No. 2: her outfit. If she arrived in hip-hugging jeans and open-toed sandals, with a subtle hint of make-up on her face, Hikari knew she was feeling good about herself. But if she'd exchanged her contacts for her old frameless glasses, covered her hair with a faded bandana, and put on the sneakers with the hole in the left toe box, it was time to come down with a horribly contagious disease. Hikari was particularly fond of whooping cough.

Trick 3: her greeting. This was the clincher. Sometimes, if tricks one and two turned up reasons to worry, Hikari would bypass the third and dash on home. Today she decided to risk it. She was meeting Miyako at the I-Mart, which meant she had been working, but she was wearing her favorite pair of boy-cut jeans. On her feet were tan cork sandals.

Hikari pushed the door open and walked in to a chorus of chimes. There were a few browsers among the wares, and Miyako was ringing up a customer at the register. Hikari waved at her and received a nod in reply.

The customer departed carrying a plastic bag, and Hikari sidled up to the counter.

"Long day?"

"Ugh." Miyako rolled her eyes. A hand rose to adjust her glasses. "Is it only two o'clock? I'm dead on my feet."

"If you're too tired for shopping…" Hikari shrugged, noticing the store wasn't air conditioned, though there was an oscillating fan set up at the other end of the counter.

Miyako shook her head. "No, that's not what I meant. I mean I'm tired of _this."_

"Ah, I see. It's like when I'm too full to finish my curry, but I've still got room for ice cream."

"Exactly!"

The two girls laughed just as Miyako's sister Momoe arrived. Miyako immediately tugged off her apron and threw it at Momoe, who caught it one-handed. "See you, Neechan."

Momoe's response was to heave a monstrous yawn and wilt over the counter. Taking Hikari by the arm, Miyako steered her outside and grinned. "I bet she only just woke up an hour ago."

"Sleeping till one in the afternoon? College life must be a blast."

"That's what I always say, and then she goes on about the horrors of term papers and credit hours, and all I can think is, _'at least you made it through examination hell!'"_

Hikari groaned as they headed down the street towards the train station. "Don't remind me. I'm so tired of prepping for high school entrance exams, and it's not even winter."

"It's not so bad," Miyako told her with all the assurance of one who has been there, done that. "At least it wasn't for me. You'll pass, anyway. Don't know about Daisuke. Maybe if he really buckles down…"

Hikari lifted an eyebrow. Miyako sniggered. "Well, it isn't like he'll be applying for Tokyo High."

They took a left at a crosswalk. "So, Aquacity, then Decks?" Miyako asked, and Hikari agreed with a nod.

As they walked, Miyako unclasped her bag and took out a can of cool green tea. "I'm glad we're going shopping. I haven't been to Aquacity in a while, but I remember there was this cute little boutique I wanted to visit sometime. Fleur-de-lis, I think it was called."

"We can look for it," Hikari said. "I want to stop in a bookstore. Takeru-kun's been sentenced to basketball camp – today's his first day – he's been dreading it all week. So I think a consolation gift is in order."

"I haven't seen Takeru-kun for… weeks." Miyako sipped her tea. "I see entirely too little of you guys since I entered high school. Hurry up and graduate already."

"We're working on it," Hikari laughed, just as the mall came into sight.

* * *

Hida Iori positioned himself on a mat in front of the low tea table and cast a discreet glance around the hotel room he was sharing with his grandfather. It was compact, a six tatami room, with a natural color scheme of beige and mahogany – as befit a _ryokan_. He brushed his fingers along the familiar grooves of the straw matting.

A pair of cotton futons were stacked in the closet, one for him and one for his grandfather. Adjacent to the closet was a Japanese-style bathroom with a deep tub, lit by a muted lamp. The toilet was in a separate room, built in the Western style complete with a bidet. Iori found colorful towels, lavender and mint green, in a drawer beneath the sink, bearing the ryokan's name: Ikedaya.

The Ikeda Inn. They were in Hakone. He, his mother, and his grandfather. Together, likely for the last time.

Wrapped in a comfortable turquoise yukata, with soft zori on his feet, Iori focused on the ceramic teapot on the table. He considered making tea, knowing that if he didn't drink it, his grandfather would. But he couldn't seem to lift his hands from his knees.

The hall door was Western-style, opening inwards with a doorknob. Iori heard it click and his grandfather's rumbling groan as Hida Chikara strode inside.

"What a joy!" Chikara exclaimed, heading to the toilet chamber. "You should have come to the _onsen_ with me, Iori. I feel twenty years younger."

Iori couldn't bring himself to smile, but he tried to keep his voice light, for his grandfather's sake. "If I visited the hot springs to feel twenty years younger, I would cease to exist."

He heard Chikara chuckle. "Very witty. Ah! My skin feels egg-smooth, and glows with such a healthy sheen. And my back! What a wonder! Those hot springs must have healing properties. Tomorrow, beware, your old grandfather may sprout a whole head of hair again."

Iori let his jaw slide open without any words on his tongue. Chikara emerged and grinned at him, displaying what few teeth he had left. "Close your mouth, Iori, or someone will mistake you for tonight's smoked fish dinner."

He eased down across the table from Iori. Moisture from the spring clung to the tips of his handlebar moustache. "We must be sure to convince your mother to take a dip this evening."

Iori nodded, dropping his gaze to the teapot again. He didn't want to look at his grandfather, silhouetted against the balcony window. He didn't want to see that dear face, those well-worn lines and that sagging skin, fine as rice paper, and imagine life without the serene wisdom that pooled in his grandfather's clear eyes.

But Chikara looked at him with a fond smile, and one gnarled, blotted hand reached out to cover his own. Iori tensed, heat rising to his cheeks. His grandfather gave his hands a pat. When he spoke, his voice was soft and rumbling, like pebbles dribbling down a stone ledge.

"Sometimes I think we raised you too strictly, your mother and I." Iori started to speak, but Chikara continued: "It was how my father raised me. How I raised your father. Duty to family, honor above all things. Looking back, I sometimes find I wish I'd experienced more, stepped out of myself a bit. There are so many things the world has to offer."

The skin at the corners of his eyes crinkled in gentle folds as he smiled. "I see so much of your father in you. He, too, wore that very same stern look from a young age. I would have loved him no matter what, but he became a son to be proud of as well as love.

"I know he would have thought the same of you, grandson."

A lump settled in Iori's throat. He gave his grandfather's bony fingers a gentle squeeze.

Chikara turned his head toward the sun dipping beyond the balcony. "Sometimes I wonder if I had loosened the reins on your father, perhaps he would have lived longer."

_"No," _Iori said fiercely, gripping Chikara's hand more resolutely. "That's not true, Ojiisan. Otousan died with honor… the best kind of honor. No one can deny that."

A strange shadow flickered over Chikara's face as he looked back. "Oh, Iori. Yes." He sighed, his shoulders rounding, looking every day of his seventy-one years. "But perhaps, if I hadn't pushed him so hard… perhaps he wouldn't have given up so quickly."

Iori felt something inscrutable well up inside him, a bubble on the verge of bursting. Siezed by a sudden urge to move around, he pushed himself off the floor and crossed to the balcony, leaning his weight against the rail. The street below was almost deserted except for a few college students riding bikes, the sunlight cradling them with fluorescent embers. A gaping lake lay just beyond, lit with a mix of fire and imminent darkness.

He sensed his grandfather come up behind him. Chikara sank into a woven chair and joined him staring at the horizon.

"Tomorrow we will cruise Lake Ashi," he said. "You will see many _torii_ standing tall in the water, their red paint just as vibrant now as when they were built. Not even the rain or the wind causes them to shirk their duty. They will stand, until they can stand no longer."

Iori closed his eyes, grateful for once for his grandfather's poetic ambiguities. Whatever his grandfather was trying to tell him, he wasn't sure he wanted to understand. That even _torii_ couldn't last forever? That not even his grandfather, who had grown up in the thick of World War II, who had worked so hard and so proudly his long life, could resist erosion?

"Someday soon you, too, will meet with a changing wind." Chikara bent forward, thin and wiry as a reed of bamboo. "And you, too, will stand strong until the storm has passed."

Iori clutched the rail until his knuckles blanched, jaw clenched tight. The two men fell silent. Simple words were not enough.

* * *

** 07.26.2006**

** WEDN**

Takaishi Takeru was used to spending his summer break somewhere other than home. These days his mother worked so much that he was lucky to see her before he went to bed or after he woke up in the morning. When she'd given up freelance writing for an in-house position with a local newspaper, the time she had used for editing her articles at home was now spent confined in her cubicle until well into the night.

But even if she wasn't the most present of mothers, Takaishi Natsuko still made her son her number one priority. She understood too well how lonely he was at home, and that the real reason he'd stuck with the basketball team was so he'd have a place to be after school, rather than return to an empty house. Breaks from classes were difficult because she couldn't schedule as many after school play dates for him, and her job kept her at work. She had to be creative to ensure he wasn't alone all summer.

This year, she'd signed him up for basketball camp. They'd talked about it; she knew basketball was just a hobby for Takeru, not something he relished the idea of doing non-stop for two weeks. But the only other option was shipping him off to Grandma Kinu in Shimane, which meant no Internet access and volatile cell phone reception, so he couldn't keep in touch with his friends. Takeru had granted her a stiff smile and assured her he was fine with her solution. He needed to do something over the break, after all, and as a rising star on the varsity team, a little extra practice couldn't hurt.

His mother meant well. He couldn't blame her for assuming, like everybody else, that he was as much of a social butterfly as he pretended to be. Not that it was strictly an act; Takeru hated being alone. Once he might even have been excited about living in the dorms, eating deep fried fish and tuna salad, and playing mini-games with boys his age who were into basketball for the fun rather than the competition. But Aomori Basketball Camp was an entirely unfamiliar environment, and while Takeru was the adaptable sort, there were times when he felt far too vulnerable in his place within the camp hierarchy.

Aomori trained boys from age 14 to 18, which automatically landed ninth graders like Takeru in the lowest class. Everyone was older, and well aware of their _senpai_ status. On the first day, Takeru had been stopped by a high school second year student and made to clean up the garbage around his dinner table. Saying no would have been a swift way to earn himself the role of Community Punching Bag for every bully on the grounds. As he crouched to pick up chopsticks and candy wrappers, the older boys tossed out vulgar comments about his gangly body, and he wondered what had happened to his nerve.

Hadn't he gone through enough in Digiworld? Hadn't he faced down opponents whose most charming smiles would be enough to make his harassers wet their pants? And yet, here he was, cornered like a bed-wetting pansy. Why couldn't he _fight back?_

It was now mid-afternoon on Wednesday, the third day of his banishment. The older teams were in the middle of a grueling scrimmage, sending the ball whistling across the indoor court in a brown blur. The substitutes and younger campers perched on the bleachers, shouting until their throats were raw, infected by the rampant energy pumping through the gym.

Tugging his neon orange pinny out of his shorts, Takeru took a seat in a corner, farthest from the excitement. His arms and legs throbbed from dribbling practice earlier in the day. He unzipped his tote bag and pulled out a notebook made of imitation leather with a mechanical pencil slipped between the pages.

"Hey, Takaishi-kun."

His head snapped up at the voice of Waku, the supervisor's assistant. Waku was a short man, shaped like a gourd, with a receding hairline and a mole the size of a quarter on his chin. At one point, long ago, Waku had been a candidate for a pro-basketball league – or so Takeru had heard. He couldn't quite imagine Waku on the court, except perhaps as the ball.

"You've got mail," Waku said. "You gotta pick this stuff up at breakfast, kid."

"Sorry." Takeru stuffed his notebook back in his bag and reached for the package Waku held out to him. "I overslept."

The truth was he'd spent the morning waiting for the other boys to abandon the locker room so he could shower in peace, free from any creative commentary on his nether regions. After a full half hour hiding behind a pair of trash cans, he was finally the only one left to stand under the by then icy cold spray.

"I woulda just kept this till tomorrow morning, but you looked like you could use a little cheering up. And I'll tell ya, nothing does good for a man who's down in the dumps like a letter from a lady." Waku's beady eyes twinkled as color poured into Takeru's cheeks. "Kid, that's a girl's writing, or I'm an ass."

"Thanks," Takeru mumbled into his shirt, wishing he'd sat closer to a fan. Waku laughed and clapped his shoulder before disappearing through the double doors.

Takeru picked at the sealing tape with his stubby nails. Printed on the package in delicate, precise handwriting was _Tokyo-to, Minato-ku, Odaiba, 4-3-31, Shiria Daiba 1306, Yagami Hikari. _He smiled softly, remembering the number of times his mother had compared Hikari's penmanship with Takeru's own rough-hewn scrawl, legible only to him, and begged her to teach him her secret.

He ripped through the tape and opened the box. It was light enough to balance in one hand. He found Hikari's letter lying on top of another box wrapped in blue- and green-striped paper, and read it first.

_Dear Takeru-kun,_

_ You suck. Brazil won the 2002 World Cup, not Argentina, blockhead, and they won against Germany, not France. Thanks for making me look like a dolt in front of my know-it-all brother. He raved for almost an hour about how great that season was, how France was ruined without What's-his-face Zidane, how Ronaldo clinched the match for Brazil in the final round and won a Golden Fleece and WHOA wasn't it all unbelievably awesome. I now know more than I ever wanted to know about soccer in 2002._

_ It's your fault for misleading me, so I'm dumping the blame on you. We can overload our brains with useless soccer trivia and use it to bore the world into bowing to our plans for global supremacy._

_ How is boot camp? Are the bullies still strutting their stuff? Oniichan wanted to send you a taser, but I was worried you'd get arrested. Maybe you can slip ice cubes down their backs. Assuming you have any ice. I know we don't._

_ Miyako-san and I went shopping on Monday, and I found something that screamed "TAKERU" in five different octaves. Miyako-san thinks it's tasteless and you'll hate it, so I've sent it to you to prove her wrong. You think it's really interesting, right?_

_ This has been your friendly Cheer Up, The World Does Not Want Your Head on a Platter letter from home, where you and your safely attached head are well missed. Write back when you can. I'll call sometime, so remember to charge your cell phone._

_ Lots of love,_

_ Hikari_

Takeru carefully folded Hikari's letter along the creases and stowed it in his tote bag. He dug his hands through the packing peanuts and retrieved her gift. She had wrapped it so neatly that the paper practically fell from the box by itself. Inside, Takeru found a paperback book with a cover image of a novel going up in flames. The title read _No Censor for Censorship: 100 Banned Books._

A grin lit up his face as he flipped through the pages. There were articles on _Alice in Wonderland, The Color Purple,_ _The Catcher in the Rye,_ and a selection of censored works from the Taishou era. _Definitely interesting,_ he thought, _right up my alley. _No one in the world knew him quite the way Yagami Hikari did. Her letters alone could make the next week and a half bearable.

He didn't notice he was on the receiving end of several funny looks from the boys seated around him until one of them nudged his leg. "Hey, bookworm, how the heck can you read through all this racket?"

Takeru shrugged. "You learn how to tune it out."

The boy lifted his eyebrows, but made no other comment, rude or otherwise. He turned his attention to the court, but Takeru caught him glancing back at him a few times throughout the rest of the scrimmage. Takeru kept his eyes trained on the book and, for a few blissful minutes, he was able to pretend he was sitting in an air-conditioned library, far away from the thump of black-striped rubber balls against the marble-smooth gymnasium floor.

* * *

"I think you took a wrong turn. We should have gone left at that last intersection."

"We're fine. This looks familiar to me."

"You mean the trees, the trees, and – let's see – the trees?"

"What else do you expect to find at a campsite?"

Taichi hid a smirk as Sora pierced Daisuke with a withering look over her shoulder. She folded her arms over her chest and slouched down in the shotgun seat while Taichi heaved a huge belly laugh.

"Geez, Sora, chill a little! We're going the right way. I _promise."_

"Your promises hold about as much water as a sieve." Sora sniffed, glowering at the dashboard.

"A sieve? Are we going gold panning?"

Sora smacked him and Taichi took a hand off the wheel to massage his temple. In the backseat, Daisuke roared and choked on his soda. Koushirou snapped his laptop shut and pounded his fist on Daisuke's back.

"Enough bickering, guys," he said. "Can't you focus even a little? Just because we didn't find anything at Hikarigaoka doesn't guarantee the camp is secure too."

Taichi obediently shut his mouth, returning his eyes to the road. After their discussion on Monday, Taichi and Koushirou had brought each of the Chosen Children up to speed and asked for volunteers to examine the Digital Gates. Recruiting had turned out to be more of a task than they'd expected; in spite of the heat, almost all of the other Chosen were booked all week long. Jou was taking summer classes and had a seminar to attend; Miyako was working; Iori was vacationing in Hakone; Takeru was at camp; it was unreasonable to ask Ken to come all the way from Tamachi; and Mimi, of course, was out of the question. Hikari, Sora and Daisuke had originally promised to come along, but at the last minute Hikari's mother decided to sweep her off for a mother-daughter outing and wouldn't be deterred. They hadn't been able to contact Yamato.

In the end, the four Most Faithful Chosen had commandeered Sora's mother's Mitsubishi (Taichi won the privilege of driving in a coin toss) and set off for Tokyo's Digital Gates. None of them were sure what they were meant to look for, but Koushirou thought their Digivices would, as usual, react to any contaminants in the skin of the vortex.

"I wonder if we should check the gate that opened after we defeated VenomMyotismon too," Sora said, rolling her window up. "And what about the one Oikawa opened? Or the one Taichi fell through after defeating Etemon?"

"Well, about those –"

"Sora-san, roll your window back down!" Daisuke complained, letting water dribble from his sports bottle over his head. "Geez, first you don't tell us the AC is broken until we're a mile away, and now you won't even let the wind in!"

"It's blowing my hair in my eyes," Sora countered. "Look, I didn't bring it all the way up. It's cracked almost halfway. You'd better not be getting water on my mother's seats!"

Daisuke stuck out his lower lip and capped the bottle. In the rearview mirror, Taichi saw Koushirou's eyes roll dangerously close to plummeting into his skull.

"As I was saying, those gates were only temporary. Oikawa sealed his own gate in much the same way BlackWarGreymon sealed his. Gennai closed the gate that took us back to Digiworld to face the Dark Masters."

"And the one that brought me home that first time?" Taichi prodded.

"That one – I'm not really sure about –" Koushirou broke off, dropping his chin in his hands. "Gennai and I have talked about it. The mass of dark energy Etemon imbibed from Datamon's base warped the barrier separating our worlds, and MetalGreymon's attack was what finally broke it and swept you in. I don't know if it was closed or not, but – it dropped you off in the park, right?"

Taichi nodded, drumming his fingers on the wheel. Sora kicked her death glare up a notch.

"Neither Willis nor I can find any trace of a Gate in that area. I'm guessing it closed of its own accord."

"And how about the one I returned through? That one was right outside my apartment complex. All sorts of Digimon were coming through – or their ghosts at least," Taichi said.

Koushirou fell silent again. Taichi glanced at him in the rearview mirror. His brow was knit and he was chewing the inside of his cheek. Knowing better than to interrupt him when he was like this, Taichi fiddled with the radio.

"I can't believe your mom doesn't have a CD player," he said as the radio faded in and out.

"She's old-fashioned," Sora sighed. "You're not going to get good reception out here. I'll be surprised if you get anything but ambient noise."

Daisuke grabbed Taichi's knapsack from under his seat and unzipped it. "You should buy a cassette adapter," he suggested, reaching in and producing a stick of cinnamon-flavored gum. "I could hook it up for you. Then you could play CDs in the car without having to do anything really fancy."

"I'll look into it. You can pick something from my mom's cassette tape collection, if you want, but it's mostly jazz and showtunes."

"No Sex Pistols?" Daisuke dropped his jaw wide. "No Dropkick Murphys?"

Taichi laughed and Sora rolled her eyes, hiding a grin.

"We're here," Taichi announced, pulling up a dirt road into the vacant parking lot of Shiroike Camping Grounds. He parallel parked the Mitsubishi, even though there were no other cars in sight. They slid out, Koushirou lugging his PC along with him, and Taichi locked the doors.

Visiting the old campgrounds always filled Taichi with a sense of home-coming. The last time the Chosen had gathered here, it had been to help the junior team face off against MaloMyotismon. But Taichi had come often since, whenever he felt particularly nostalgic, and sometimes when he was upset. If the others had the same habit, they'd never made mention, but neither had he.

"I'm surprised there aren't any campers around right now," Sora said as they trekked past the office building to the rows of wood cabins and A-tents that had once been their own stomping ground.

Koushirou shrugged. "I heard there wasn't enough interest, from kids or counselors."

"That's a shame. We had a good time."

"Maybe you did, but I was miserable before, you know, everything happened. The dial-up connection here was abysmal."

Following Taichi's lead, Daisuke mounted the narrow wooden steps leading to the horseshoe of cabins. He managed a low whistle around the clump of gum in his mouth. "So this is where it all happened."

"I think that one was mine," Taichi said, pointing to a cabin near the edge of the woods. "I stayed there with Yamato and Koushirou – Jou had a cabin farther along, and the girls were… closer to the office, I think."

"But you were all in the same cabin the day you got beamed up to Digiworld, right?" Daisuke said.

"Yeah. We all happened to run there when the snow hit. I really don't know why we were the only ones who came outside after it stopped…"

"Must've been fate, I guess."

"I don't believe in fate." Koushirou crossed the open grass that led to the river. "Everything concerning Digiworld follows a logical, comprehensible pattern. Even if we don't know the where-fores and how-tos, I'm certain they exist."

Daisuke cocked his head quizzically at Taichi, who shrugged. He understood it was difficult for any of them not to believe in fate, after the things they'd gone through together. But Koushirou was the one working to piece the puzzle together. He was the one trying to understand the way Digiworld worked. And, more often than not, his theories were sound. If anyone could piece together the mystery surrounding the Digital World, it was him.

The foursome came to a halt at the spot they knew the gate to be. They knelt down, holding their Digivices (and D3) in the palms of their hands, as they had done in Hikarigaoka. Taichi fiddled with a blade of grass. The Digivices had astounded him with their powers many times before, but he couldn't help feeling silly, squatting in the dirt and staring mutely at his outstretched hand.

Daisuke popped the gum he'd stolen from Taichi's knapsack again and again. After several minutes, Sora looked dangerously close to propelling him through the vortex herself. Koushirou remained seated cross-legged with his PC propped up in his lap, scowling at the screen, his Digivice tucked into his adapter. Taichi wished he'd brought something to eat.

After ten minutes, Koushirou let out a sigh and shut down his PC. "Looks like it was a false alarm, guys," he said. "Sorry about that."

Taichi shook his head, standing up to stretch. "Nah, Kou. I'm glad you brought it up. If there had been something to worry about, we would have had it squared away in no time."

"My gum's lost its flavor already," Daisuke whined. He nudged Taichi's ribs. "Next time buy something that lasts longer, 'kay?"

"Ugh, do I have grass stains on my jeans?" Sora asked, twisting her body to glimpse the back of her shorts.

Only a fool would pass up a chance to ogle Sora's butt, so Taichi leaned over and thoroughly inspected every inch of fabric and seam. "All clear," he said, shooting her a cheeky grin.

"You dog." Sora giggled. He waggled his eyebrows at her, then started to draw himself up, when the world tipped.

With a true athlete's grace, he managed to spin on his heel and regain his footing. Turning back to the others, he found them with their mouths open, eyes as wide and round as sand dollars.

_"Taichi!"_ Sora gave a little gasp, the color drained from her face.

"Don't move," Koushirou said, with the look of a panic-stricken deer. Taichi wasn't sure if his instruction was intended for him or his friends.

Slowly he raised his hands to his face. They were nut brown like the rest of him, broad and tough, crowned with stubby nails. He wore a Nike wristband on his right arm, and noticed the bandage around his left index finger where he'd cut it with a steak knife was beginning to peel off.

In the space of a moment, his hands _disappeared._

_"Holy –"_ Taichi sucked in his breath, tensing up from head to toe. His eyes flickered around wildly, waiting for his hands to reappear – because they would, surely they would. Instead, he saw his forearms begin to disintegrate, as neatly as if someone had brushed an eraser over his body. Then his elbows vanished as well, and he was just starting to panic for real when Daisuke leaped forward and tackled him to the ground.

In the past four years, Daisuke had filled out considerably, morphing from awkward prepubescent to strong-boned teenager. Taichi was the taller of the two, long and lithe, most of his strength in his legs, a body built for speed. Daisuke had wider shoulders, a trunk-like chest and waist, and outweighed him by pounds of sheer muscle. It had come to the point that Daisuke could, more often than not, knock Taichi off his feet on the soccer field with a surprise steal from behind.

But sprawled beneath Daisuke's powerful body, Taichi didn't see the cocksure adolescent his protégé had become. Daisuke's hands braced Taichi's arms to the ground, his eyes squeezed shut. Taichi didn't move for a long moment. His arms were back. He could see his hands. He tried to flex them and sighed with relief when they moved.

Daisuke tightened his grip, and Taichi managed to find his voice, realizing they were both trembling. "I-I think it's okay now," he squeaked rather than spoke. He mustered up a weak smile. "Man. That was different, huh."

Daisuke shook his head. He pressed his face into Taichi's shirt. Taichi could hear his breath hitch in time with his own.

"Taichi – are you –" Koushirou and Sora tumbled down the hill, mouths twisted in identical expressions of horror. At their calls, Daisuke pushed himself up and offered a hand to Taichi, who took it. He wobbled on shaky knees, feeling numb and strangely detached from the rest of the world.

Sora's arm snaked around his waist, and together she and Daisuke helped him towards the car. Koushirou followed close behind, clutching his PC to his chest. Taichi limped along mechanically at first, willing his stomach to stop churning. Sora wouldn't appreciate his emptying the contents of his stomach in her mother's car – that would definitely dig up the infamous Hat Incident. Again.

At the foot of the steps, Taichi decided he'd had enough of being babied and broke away.

"I'm okay now," he said, taking a few staggering steps towards the car. "That," he tried to laugh, "was _unbelievable, _wasn't it? Looks like there must be a problem in Digiworld after all."

His friends were watching him as if the moment they looked away he'd shatter like glass. He was almost afraid he might, too, but he wasn't going to let them know it.

"What do you think happened there, Koushirou?" he prompted, hoping to turn their attention off him.

Koushirou hesitated. Then he clenched his jaw firmly. "I think," he said, "we need to get you back home."

* * *

_A/N: For this story, I'm combining elements of American and Japanese culture, in an effort to create a world that is accessible to the majority of the readers, but still holds a share of authenticity. I'm taking liberties with the way Digiworld works, so don't be surprised if I don't follow exact canon. I've interpreted the characters as neatly as I can, but it's true that everyone views them differently. However, I'm making an effort to keep everyone as IC as possible. There will be no major OCs in this story. Those that exist are either plot devices or villains. If you spot an inaccuracy or just want to mention a nonessential point, please do so - I won't promise to change anything, but I'll appreciate your input._

**Chapter Notes:**

1.] _temperatures had climbed into the 100 degrees Fahrenheit as recently as 2004:_ There was indeed a heat wave in Japan in 2004, as well as a destructive one in Europe in 2003. There was actually a heat wave in the U.S.A. in 2006 – I claim artistic license for my adding it in various places like Japan. Please excuse my use of the Fahrenheit system – it's probably in the 40s for Celsius.

2.] _typed at a rate of 30 words per minute:_ I have no clue how they work out wpm in Japan, but I wanted readers to have a good idea of how slowly Taichi types. It's not like he's a horrible typist – but compared to Koushirou, whose wpm is likely in the 100s…

3.] Taichi's screen name is a pun on his love of soccer and the "gami" (kami) in his surname, which means "god." Koushirou's screen name refers to how Tentomon calls him "Koushirou-han" instead of "Koushirou-san," using Kansai dialect.

4.] _Aquacity and Decks:_ Malls in Odaiba/Daiba situated next to each other.

5.] _Ikedaya:_ An actual ryokan in Hakone. I stayed there during my visit. It's very nice.

6.] The Yagami's full address can be found on Mimi's postcard in Our War Game (the second movie, or the middle part of the English dub movie).

7.] _Alice in Wonderland, The Color Purple, The Catcher in the Rye, and a selection of censored works from the Taishou era:_ These books were banned in various places, not necessarily by an entire country, let alone Japan. This is a creative liberty I am taking – I found a bit on books banned in Japan, but it was too time-consuming to research the books themselves enough to know if they fit the criteria I was looking for. I made homage to them by pointing out the Taishou era books, but listed books commonly known to English lit readers also.

_Please review... this took such a long time! Chapter 2 will be up as soon as possible._


	2. So Much for the Good Old Days

_A/N: Thanks for the kind reviews! Sorry for the wait - this chapter nearly killed me, and between work and going back to school I hardly had time to write it. Anyway, it's here now, and there's a bit of info-dumping - I promise we'll have action next time. I actually cut it short - I wanted to add a scene with Takeru, but when I got to that point I decided it was better to post what I already had, so that will happen next time._

_I'm making small edits to chapter one and eventually part of this chapter too, but nothing that will require a second reading._

* * *

**Chapter Two**

**So Much for the Good Old Days**

"_As faith for the future faded fast, he grows strong with their displeasure. It sets him free."  
- Within Temptation: Deceiver of Fools_

** 07.26.2006**

** WEDN**

Lounging on the checkered sofa that was part of the Fuji TV studio, Ishida Yamato brought a cup of water to his lips and gulped it down. Sweat had gathered on his forehead like jurors in a courtroom. Outside, the temperature was a broiling 101 degrees Fahrenheit. The set was only slightly cooler, where Yamato sat baking under tall gleaming lights, dressed in a tight-fitting black shirt and dark jeans expertly frayed at the knees. Every few minutes, the make-up artist with pinched lips, as if he had a slice of lemon permanently lodged in his mouth, came by to touch up his face and rearrange the sun-bleached hair framing his face.

He crumpled the plastic cup in his fist, imagining it was his agent's neck. His deep sigh of satisfaction morphed into a growl as soon as the illusion faded.

"I'm going to rip this weird-ass couch to pieces if we don't get started soon."

Next to him, his bandmate, Michishita Yutaka, quit knotting stray ends of the threadbare couch together long enough to kick him in the shin.

"C'mon, man. This gig is going to plaster our faces on prime time TV from here to Chiba, Okinawa – even San Francisco! Small price to pay for that kind of publicity, right?"

Yamato glowered at the vast number of people milling around in an effort to film the commercial sometime before television went out of style. "They aren't even using one of our songs. Who's going to remember it's us?"

"Why are you always such a cynic?"

"Why are you always whining? Move." Mizuno Akira, their keyboardist, squished in between them and handed them tall glasses of iced tea. "Don't drink them. They're fake."

Yutaka grumbled, running his thumb along the faux ice rimming his glass. "The least they could do is give us real ice, before our brains ooze out our ears."

"It would only melt," Yamato pointed out as he inspected the fake lemon suspended in his non-drink.

He wondered again how their agent, Komori Akio, had sweet-talked him into filming a commercial, as if they were some boy band, some passing fad that needed to be milked for all its worth before society blinked and realized how entirely unfashionable they were. That was all right for his friends. Yutaka and their drummer, Arai Takashi, were shameless attention-seekers who would jump at the chance for any slice of fame, be it fifteen minutes or fifteen seconds. And Akira didn't care about anything that didn't have to do with his piano playing.

But Yamato was cut from a different mold than his friends. Or maybe he was just difficult (his father would attest to that quickly enough). The pseudo-partisan world of showbusiness beckoned, welcomed him as he'd never dreamed it would, and instead of embracing it, he found himself missing his days still stuck in the garage. Not that he intended to admit that he was so sentimental to his friends.

No. Coworkers. Bandmates. They were professionals now.

Komori was no flake at his job. He'd outlined each of the benefits with practiced eloquence: The Teenage Wolves had garnered an almost cult-like local fanbase ever since Yamato's father had jumpstarted their debut while they still wore middle school _gakuran_ uniforms. Now that they had a record deal, a hot new sound, a contract with an agent, and an island-wide tour under their metaphorical belt, it was time to market their music even more relentlessly. The number one avenue for planting their names in consumers' minds was, of course, public television.

And it just so happened that a company approached Fuji TV looking for a boy band to promote Tik-Toks, their new foam-based footware which came in five gaudy colors. And it just so happened that Yamato's father worked for Fuji TV and had a son who was a rising star in the music industry. And it just so happened that the commercial director liked the Teenage Wolves and was on friendly terms with their agent and, wouldn't you know it, they were a _perfect_ fit for the job.

It happened like that. Yamato's head was still spinning weeks later.

The hateful make-up artist (who probably spent his free time stealing candy from children and kicking puppies) approached and daubed Yamato's face with a brush. "So pale," he crooned as he worked, "but such thick lashes. You look like a French doll."

Yamato suppressed a shudder. Whatever happened to serious musicians playing _music,_ not agonizing over their wardrobe, or piling on more make-up than a Kyoto _maiko_, or posing with prepubescent girls wearing T-shirts printed with their silhouettes?

"Ishida-kun," a stagehand called. Yamato caught his eye without the slightest tilt of his head, a trick he'd perfected during those years when it was cool to look like you weren't paying attention in school. It annoyed teachers, who'd considered him a rebel, and it just as easily unnerved the stagehand as he hesitantly stretched out his palm, in which lay Yamato's cell phone.

"It's gone off four times in the past thirty minutes," he said, fixing his attention on the phone rather than Yamato's face. Yamato snatched it out of his hand and flipped it open. "I like your ringtone," he added almost meekly. _"The Grinch that Stole Christmas_ was a childhood favorite of mine."

Heat flooded Yamato's cheeks, but he hid it expertly – the heavy layers of MAC powder on his cheeks helped. "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" was Taichi's ringtone. He'd programmed it quite without informing Yamato the day before the Teenage Wolves headed off on their first tour. He'd gone as far as to threaten that if Yamato didn't immediately pick up every time Jim Carey started yowling at him, he'd be cursed with perpetual split ends. Yamato hadn't bothered to change the song, miserable excuse for music though it was. An embarrassing ringtone was easier to cope with than Taichi's notorious obstinacy.

He granted the stagehand a curt nod, and the man scampered away. Yamato shuffled through his missed calls: two from Taichi, who had also dropped him a voice-mail, and one from Koushirou. Koushirou had also left a text message in his inbox:

**Yamato-san:**

** Incident with the Digital Gates today. Don't know how serious yet. I'll keep you posted. We'll call a meeting this coming week for any of us who can make it.**

** Please talk to Taichi-san.**

** Izumi Koushirou**

Frowning, Yamato turned off his phone and flipped it shut. _What kind of 'incident?'_ Smart as he was, Koushirou was infamous for omitting details out of sheer absent-mindedness. Was Gabumon all right?

Yamato's chest clenched as it hit him that wasn't at all sure that he'd brought his Digivice to the studio. He must have; he'd never forget something so important to him. Frantically he peeled through his memory. Had he left it in the dressing room? The van?

"Let's take it from the top," the director was saying, sending his minions scuttling into place. Takashi ambled over and parked himself next to Yutaka, looking just as hot and frustrated as Yamato felt. The make-up artist fiddled with Takashi's hair until his eyes were visible through his long bangs. Then he moved away and the cameras rolled in.

Yutaka leaned past Akira and tapped Yamato's shoulder. "Yo, you okay? You're white as a sheet. Careful or they'll attack you with concealer again."

Struggling to swallow now that his throat had closed up, Yamato bobbed his head a few times, which seemed enough to mollify Yutaka. His vision seemed skewed by the blinding lights. And his lunch wouldn't stop cartwheeling in his stomach.

"Shoes!" the director cried. The four Wolves slipped their feet into the soft, sponge-like Tik-Toks, each in a different nausea-inducing color. Staring down at the gaudy green shoes didn't help matters. Yamato wondered idly if he'd even manage to make it through his single line, _"Hey, these feel go-o-od!"_

Someone darted forward and grabbed the cell phone from Yamato. His hands felt strangely empty without it.

"Take!"

* * *

Hours later, the Weary Wolves were allowed a respite. The director assured them he thought they'd taped enough viable film for their ten-second spot. As soon as he'd given them the OK to leave, Komori ushered Yutaka, Akira, and Takashi into a van outside to bring them home. Yamato waved good-bye and took the elevator to his father's office. It was quarter to seven, and Yamato was hoping to squirm out of cooking dinner. Maybe they could catch a bite at a nearby diner, or even McDonald's, if it came to that.

On the other hand, he wasn't sure he wanted to go anywhere but straight home. He'd found his Digivice in his knapsack, and had to resist kissing it in front of his bandmates. He'd been too upset to "think cool thoughts," per Komori's advice. But finding the Digivice, safe and showing no indication of trouble for Gabumon, had done a lot to ease his panic.

He stopped in a restroom to scrub off every trace of make-up left on his skin. His hair felt stiff, overloaded with gel, but there was nothing he could do about that until he got home and showered. Once he looked a little more like himself, he dried his face with a paper towel and checked the time on his phone.

His father had a guest in his office, a tall man in an official-looking suit and polished shoes. Ishida Hiroaki seemed oddly misplaced in his wrinkled shirt with the sleeves rolled up, sloppy tie, and graying, mussed hair. He didn't so much as glance up when Yamato rapped on the door.

Knowing Hiroaki, even though his shift ended at seven, they probably wouldn't set foot out of the building for another half hour. That left Yamato to entertain himself. He considered calling Taichi back, but just as soon shoved the thought aside. He wanted to hear whatever Taichi had to tell him in the privacy of his home, with enough space to digest the news at his own pace.

Sitting on a bench near a window, he pulled out a booklet of empty staff lines. The Teenage Wolves did not compose their own music, but it was a hobby Yamato liked to indulge in on his own time. Maybe someday he'd write something worth recording. He wasn't about to breach the subject with Komori yet, though – not until the Teenage Wolves had a solid fan following and some financial stability.

Their second single was slated to hit the market on August 10th. After that, their future would be in the hands of the critics.

He wrote for ten solid minutes, marking the page up and down with dancing black circles and slashes. A shadow fell over the page and he looked up at his father, baggy-eyed and in need of a shave, his jacket draped over one arm and his briefcase in the other.

"I need a smoke," Hiroaki said. "Let's go outside."

They walked down the hall to a balcony, and Yamato leaned on the rail, watching the dying sunlight snake its way through the maze of apartments and office buildings that made up Odaiba's core. Even at night the city was like an oven. Yamato suspected more than a little of his bad mood could be attributed to the ruthless weather.

Hiroaki plucked two cigarettes from his pocket, jabbing one at Yamato. Yamato offered his own sleek red lighter and soon curls of smoke began to drift from the balcony.

"How'd it go?" Hiroaki asked.

Yamato shrugged. "Fine," he said. "Not what I expected, but fine."

"What did you expect?"

"A little less bumming around."

Hiroaki laughed, or rather he made a rasping sound that was meant to be laughter – smoking had dried out his voice long ago. "Yeah, that's show biz. That's why I told you to bring a magazine. Next time maybe you'll listen to your old man."

Yamato shrugged again, starting to feel annoyed. He hadn't wanted to do the commercial in the first place. Komori – and his dad too, come to think of it – had pushed it on him, forced him to wear those ridiculous kiddie shoes and squeal over how they _"feel go-o-od." _He'd wreck his own tremulous bad boy image before he ever got to see the sales from their first single.

"At least they gave you a complimentary pair of shoes," Hiroaki went on, smirking. "You can never have too many shoes. I bet you'll wear them everywhere."

"Sure," Yamato snorted. "I'll wear them on stage and toss them in the mosh pit."

He puffed out a cloud of tobacco smoke and watched it disperse through the air. At least, out here, he was safe from reporters. His fans were largely preteens; their idol caught smoking would dash their perfect world view before reality did it for them.

"Hey," Hiroaki said, "I'm proud of you, you know."

Yamato choked and Hiroaki pounded his back as he coughed over the rail.

"Okay, this time don't go into shock. I'm proud of you. You're taking hold of your future by the horns, and you're not letting go. If I'd been half so goal-oriented at your age –"

He broke off, but Yamato knew what he'd been about to say. _I wouldn't have dropped out of college I wouldn't have married your mother, I wouldn't have gotten divorced._

He'd heard it all before. He was privy to every time Hiroaki staggered home completely tanked, with another bottle of booze dangling at his side like an unholy extension of his arm. Sometimes he'd cradle the bottle tenderly, as if it were an infant. Yamato had seen pictures of himself tucked into the crook of his father's strong, pale arm. In those photos Hiroaki was always smiling, clean-shaven and timelessly youthful, unrecognizable in the guise of a proud father.

Yamato didn't know if there were any photos of his mother acting that way buried somewhere in their apartment. Natsuko probably kept them at her place, assuming she hadn't clipped Hiroaki out of each picture during the first week after the divorce. Though Hiroaki and Natsuko usually managed to be civil to each other these days, they'd crashed through the early years as if they were running class six rapids.

"Anyway." Hiroaki cleared his throat and adjusted his tie, a nervous habit that did him no good since he always loosened the knot until it fell apart completely. "I just wanted you to know that. And to celebrate, I'm treating you to dinner at Goethe's tonight."

Rolling his eyes, Yamato plucked his cigarette from his lips and said, "Tousan, any place named after an 18th century Romantic writer is definitely the wrong place for your father-son bonding ritual."

"I can't believe you'd accuse me of wanting to bond with my son." Hiroaki raised his arms in protest. "That almost makes me sound like some kind of family man."

"You? Never. It's just that Goethe is the author of _The Sufferings of Young Werther._ I think I failed that class because I laughed so hard at the end of book one, when he was separated from Lotte after _'taking her hand and wetting it with a thousand tears.'"_

"So you think the spirit of Goethe holds a grudge against you."

"Well, I'm not going to push my luck. I'd be pissed at loud-mouthed high schoolers who laughed at my sucky pick-up lines too."

"I never thought you were the superstitious type."

"There's a lot you don't know about me," Yamato said. He planted his smoking cigarette butt firmly in an ash tray.

"Maybe that's because you're so opposed to bonding." Hiroaki followed suit and they made their way to the elevator. "All right, if not Goethe's, what about Shabu Zen?"

* * *

Yamato smoothed the quilt before he sank down on his bed. He bent over the side and dried his hair with a towel. Afterward, though his scalp was rubbed raw, the roots of his hair still felt rigid to the touch.

All he wanted was to get to sleep early and wake up sometime after noon, when hopefully all lingering negtivity from the commercial shoot would have evaporated and he'd be able to function like his normal self… whatever "normal" was these days. He'd never felt so drained.

But Koushirou's instruction to "Please talk to Taichi-san" swam across his mind, and finally he sighed and gave in. He wouldn't be able to fall asleep with that on his conscience. Reaching for his cell phone on his desk, he called his voice-mailbox and leaned against the wall.

Taichi sounded tired – almost reluctant to talk, his voice breaking several times throughout the message. Yamato's frown deepened as he tried to piece the story together.

_"Hey, s'me. I know you're busy with your, you know, your – all the stuff that makes you too busy to pick up your cell – but could you call me when you get a chance? When you're not busy."_

There was a long pause. Yamato began to wonder if that was the end of the message when Taichi spoke again with even less of his usual energy.

_"Today weirded me out, Yamato. I don't mind telling you, but don't freak out or freak anyone else out, okay? It took ages for me to convince Sora and the others that I'm fine. And I am fine, just – just – confused. Maybe a little scared. But not, like, scared stiff. Right now I'm doing good. I'm watching soccer on TV. Soudai is losing so fricking bad, I mean what the heck was that, a pirouette?"_

Well, he couldn't have been that upset, if he was still able to rant about college soccer.

_"So, yeah, call me? Soonish? Thanks, man – Oh, by the way, this is Taichi. I didn't say that, did I? Ha."_

Yamato thought for a minute, then dialed Taichi's number. He waited until the third ring. There was a _click,_ and then:

"Yagami."

"Taichi – what happened?" Yamato jumped in quickly, wanting to explain why he hadn't called earlier before Taichi had a chance to taunt him about it. "I'm sorry, man, I was at this thing with my band when you called, and I just got your message now –"

"Who is this?"

Yamato froze on the edge of his bed. "… Yagami-san?"

"Yeah," barked Taichi's father. "Is this Ishida?"

Yamato's mouth went dry. Staying on Yagami Susumu's good side had never been part of his skill set. Ask anyone and they'd say Susumu was an all-round decent guy. It was easy to see where Taichi got his goofy smile. But he'd caught Yamato in a few… compromising positions in the past. Puking in his best friend's bathroom in the middle of the night, in clothes that reeked of alcohol, wasn't one of his shining moments. To Susumu he constituted a "bad influence," and the cheerful, laid-back guy everyone else knew as Taichi's father was one of the people Yamato most wanted to avoid.

"What?" Susumu said to someone on his end of the phone. By the sound of her voice, it was Hikari, and a moment later he heard her clearly on the line:

"Yamato-san?"

"Hikari-chan." Relieved, Yamato let his shoulders droop and relax. "What's going on? Did I get your home phone by mistake? I thought I called Taichi's cell."

"No, you got it right." She sounded harassed. He thought he heard her sigh. "Oniichan's napping."

"Napping," Yamato repeated. He traced a fissure of cracked paint on his wall with a finger. "Is he all right?"

"I don't know. He was already asleep on the couch when I got home, but I heard about what happened from Daisuke-kun."

"Right," Yamato said, trying to pretend he knew as much as she did. "I hope I didn't say anything to make your parents suspicious."

"I don't think so. My dad's grumpy because of some ball game. I doubt he paid attention."

"Ah, right. Taichi asked me to call him, so this is the return message."

"Do you want me to wake him up?"

Yamato hesitated. He wasn't sure he'd be much use to Taichi in his current funk. But if Taichi really needed him…

"What do you think?"

"I think we shouldn't bother him," Hikari said without missing a beat. "I know what it's like to disappear. It tears at you. I think sleep's the best thing for him right now."

Yamato had stopped listening at the word "disappear," his insides knotting. His mind raced back to Ken and the ocean. Hikari and the lighthouse. Sora and the pit.

Himself and the cave.

He clutched the phone to his ear, pressing too hard, leaving an imprint of the keys on his earlobe. "Hikari-chan," he said, "start from the beginning.

"Tell me everything you know."

* * *

** 07.28.2006**

** FRI**

Puffy white clouds dappled the late morning sky. Just beyond the Yagamis' apartment, plum trees spread their leaves to grasp for sunlight, their limbs bent and beckoning. Taichi pressed his palm against the window and remembered swinging from those branches, his shirt hiked up above his navel, his shorts slipping down over his thighs. Sometimes he'd take Hikari with him and hoist her up onto one of the lower branches before climbing up himself. Or he'd hide deep within the canopy of leaves and crow at girls, and if one of them happened to be Sora she'd chase him, and he'd race her until they were both gasping for breath and, without sparing a thought for cooties, collapsed on top of each other.

He'd come home with scraped elbows and knees, blisters running down the cleft of his thumb, and enough grass stains to warrant yet another load of laundry. And his mother would admonish him, You really should be more careful. And his father would tell her that boys needed their freedom. The antiseptic on his wounds stung like a fiery kiss, as the little voice in the back of his mind whispered _I did this…_

But these days the trees were too parched for climbing, and anyway he had outgrown them. He opened the window for Hikari, who stretched her arm and watered their mother's potted geraniums. He went back to puttering around the kitchen and checked on the rice cooker.

"Fluffy yet?" Hikari set the watering can on the counter and peered around him. She'd been peering around him a lot lately, trying to glimpse his face while his guard was down. Somehow the muscles in his cheeks ached worse when his smiles were fake.

"Getting there," he replied. "Move over so I can scramble the eggs."

"Move over, '_please,'"_ Hikari corrected him as she ambled into the family room. Rediscovering her mug on the coffee table, she leaned against the sofa, sipping oolong tea while she watched the news.

Taichi decided there wasn't any real sense in saying "please" when he was the one in charge of making breakfast and the older brother besides, so he ignored her last remark and added milk to the eggs. He heard her make a sympathetic noise at something the newscaster said and assumed she wouldn't return to the kitchen until it was time to eat. Hikari loved tragic news. It fed her trove of gossip, which she would then share with Takeru so they could lament the sad state of the world together. Between the two of them, they knew enough sob stories to fill an entire volume of _Chicken Soup for the Soul._

And it was his privilege as her brother to laugh at them when they spent hours discussing some trivial piece of news. And, often, to sidestep tearful accusations of insensitivity, as well as wayward kitchen appliances that unexpectedly took fight.

He poured the eggs into a skillet and lolled against the counter while they set. Even his own parents wondered how their children ended up so entirely different. They didn't share a blood type. They didn't even look much alike; Hikari was rapidly turning into a clone of their mother, and as far as anyone could tell Taichi took after some obscure uncle he'd only ever met twice, who lived in Hokkaido and studied Ainu culture. Apparently Taichi's ears were his uncle's legacy. He'd never met his cousins, but one look at their ears and he'd know them without being introduced. But on one thing everyone agreed – different as Taichi and his sister were, no one ever doubted they were related.

Maybe it was their chins – they both had very fine, unclefted chins. He'd given their chins a lot of thought the other night. They were lucky to have them. Large enough to define their mouths, but small enough that they didn't compromise the smooth curve of their jaws. Not strikingly masculine, but Taichi's athletic build made up for that – and at least they shared chins rather than ears. Thanks to Uncle Kazunari, Taichi's ears curved comically outward like spoons, once earning him the moniker "monkey ears," which Taichi's father used to claim he ate for breakfast. For a six-year-old, the thought was traumatizing. Hikari mercifully never went through that; her ears were flat and dainty.

At least their chins were the same. Among other things.

He couldn't talk to her about his vanishing act. That would bring up too many complicated emotions. He could barely handle it himself – the memory of _his_ arm, physically _there_, he could feel it, but not visible – and she didn't deserve it. She'd been there already. It had nearly taken her from him. They could share the memory, along with everything else, their chins and their noses and various genes, but he couldn't let her share this.

He raised his hand, palm up, and trailed each ridge. His life line dipped from the valley between his thumb and index finger towards the bronze column of his wrist. Blue veins wound through his arm, forking here and there like the Nile Delta. He pressed two fingers to his radial artery and felt the very real, very present throb of his pulse. And that artery had disappeared like it were nothing but a wisp of smoke.

"Oniichan?"

Hikari's questioning voice brought him back. He found himself staring at his mother's decorative lacquer kettle, and realized he'd slumped down against the counter so his elbows were all that kept him off the floor. He turned to her with the most casual look he could manage.

Her arms encircled his shoulders and she brought him down to her petite height. She said nothing but pressed against him, lashes brushing his cheek.

"Hikari…" He pushed her back lightly. She didn't budge. "C'mon, I'm really fine. Whatever story Daisuke fed you, I'm betting was an elaboration – you know, he likes that, what do they call it? Hyperbole."

Hikari shook her head. "You're not as talented an actor as you think. Besides, don't you think I know exactly what it's like?"

"I never said you don't." He could barely hide his agitation at her ability to read him. This was exactly why he avoided arguing with his sister. "But you're worrying for no reason. Today Koushirou's going to tell us it was all a lot of nothing, and that I was only sucked through the spacetime continuum and living the life of a Red Shirt on _Star Trek_ –"

"Whatever he says," she interrupted quietly, "it can't take away that feeling of being nowhere."

She was right.

He'd never felt more out of touch with his own self.

Everywhere, and nowhere, and nothing at all.

* * *

"Where are you off to?"

Izumi Yoshie knit her brow as she watched her son pull on his shoes. "It's so hot out there," she added, gazing at the window where the curtains were drawn, as if the sun were an unfriendly visitor. New lines in her comely face deepened into her frown.

Koushirou patted his keys in his pocket and searched the floor for his laptop case. He grabbed it by the handle and tucked it under his arm.

"I'm meeting Miyako-kun," he said. "She wants to outline some of the main goals for this year's computer club with me."

At least it wasn't a total lie. Miyako had promised to show up at the meeting, and as long as he talked to her a little bit about the club's annual bake sale, he could report to his mother and sleep with a clear conscience.

… Or not, but it was the best he could do for the moment. If he gave his mother the smallest hint that he was involved with business in the Digital World again, she'd find a way to involve herself. God bless her, but he never wanted to look at another PB&J sandwich in his life.

"Take a water bottle," Yoshie said. "Take that reusable turquoise one, not anything plastic. And fill it with water – no fruit punch, no ginger ale."

"Okay," Koushirou called from the kitchen. He found the specified bottle and filled it with tap water. "I'm leaving," he shouted with one foot out the door.

"Are you wearing sun screen?"

He darted down the stairs before she could chase after him.

Walking into the outdoors was like running into a wall of snug, oppressive air, like a city-size sauna. Within minutes a trail of sweat trickled down the back of his neck. He walked until he reached the gymnasium and transferred from the reek of summer into a thick wave of body odor.

"Senpai!" Miyako and Hikari were reclining on couches, enjoying the air conditioned lobby. Miyako's hair was awry and both girls' shirtfronts were damp. "Sora-san and Taichi-san are in the gym playing racquetball. Aren't they nuts?"

Stopping short of the couches, Koushirou knelt in front of a low table and set up his computer. "Miyako-kun, I wouldn't be surprised if those two have transcended this heat. Or at least common sense."

"They must live off B.O. the way plants do carbon dioxide," Miyako muttered, and Hikari giggled.

Daisuke and Ken shuffled down the hall loaded with soft drinks from the vending machines. "Here's for you," Daisuke proclaimed, handing Hikari a lemon iced tea and Miyako a V8. "An' the Pepsi's for Sora-san, and the root beer's for Taichi-san."

"Sorry that we didn't get anything for you," Ken apologized to Koushirou, who raised his water bottle and told him not to worry, he'd been forbidden to drink anything but water anyway.

Daisuke settled back with his Cola and propped his legs up on the table, ignoring the receptionist who was shooting him the evil eye from behind a mound of paperwork. Ken popped the top off his Sprite and both boys simultaneously took a drink. For a moment they reminded Koushirou of himself and Taichi so acutely that he had to work hard not to betray his amusement.

"How was your trip, Ken-kun?" Hikari asked politely. She looked very cute, Koushirou noted. She'd clipped her hair with a barrette of entwined daisies and wore a simple white-and-blue summer dress. Her sandals lay haphazardly on the floor and he could see splashes of powder pink nail polish on her toes.

"It was fine, thank you." Ever polite, Ken gave a gracious nod as he capped his soda. "The bus was a little stuffy, but at least it's not a long ride."

"It's worth it to spend the weekend with me, ain't it?" Daisuke grinned, slinging an arm around his best friend.

Ken's smile of longsuffering sent Koushirou and the girls into rounds of laughter.

"How long do you intend to grow your hair? I think you've got Yamato-san beat by now," Miyako teased, tugging a few strands of her own.

Ken raked his fingers through his shoulder-length mane and shrugged. "I don't know. Do you think it's too long?"

"No! It suits you," Miyako objected immediately.

"Miyako likes Hyde," Daisuke added, as if this explained everything.

She seemed to agree. "If you grow your hair like Hyde's in _Dune,_ it'll look nice."

"Who's Hyde…?" Ken asked cautiously, and they all laughed again.

At last Jou showed up, stubbornly wearing long pants and a collared shirt and paying for it with his dignity, and the group headed into the gym under the pretense of joining a basketball game. They found Taichi and Sora sprawled on the floor of the racquetball room, both exhausted, their racquets abandoned.

"I warned you," Miyako said, tapping Sora's shoulder with her Pepsi can.

Sora rolled her eyes and took several deep gulps.

"It was worth it," Taichi protested. He dropped down on his elbows and closed his eyes. "I'm zonked. Think I'll nap right here."

"Taichi-senpai, you should drink too. You'll get hypothermia." Daisuke thrust the can of root beer under Taichi's nose. Taichi thanked him and exchanged a look of amusement with Koushirou.

They counted the seconds.

"You mean _hyper_thermia," Jou said, right on cue. Sora snorted into her soda and Taichi slapped hands with Koushirou. "Hypothermia is the opposite of hyperthermia. That's when the body gets too cold."

Daisuke shrugged. "Same diff, man."

"And if you're looking to prevent heat stroke, it's best to drink lots of water, keep hydrated," Jou went on as if Daisuke hadn't spoken. "Carbonated drinks aren't as refreshing."

"Where's Yamato?" Taichi asked before Daisuke could engage Jou in a heated battle over the virtues of soft drinks (which Jou would inevitably lose in spite of his superior data bank; Daisuke's obstinacy even when wrong was a force with which his opponents were rarely equipped to cope).

"I think he said he was coming," Hikari said uncertainly.

"It's ten after… Has anyone heard from him since yesterday?" Koushirou asked.

Each Chosen turned to look at their neighbor. Aside from occasional phone calls and emails, none of them saw much of Yamato outside of school anymore.

Taichi's face fell visibly. Deciding it was high time to start the meeting, Koushirou opened his laptop and checked the wireless connection. "Does everyone know the reason we called for this meeting?" he asked as he waited for his browser to load.

There was a general assenting murmur, and all eyes turned furtively to Taichi, who leveled them with a dark scowl.

"For the ten billion megazillionth time, I'm _fine,"_ he insisted.

No one believed him for a second. Koushirou thought back to the follow-up call he'd made as soon as he got home on Wednesday. He'd given step-by-step instructions – "_Stay away from the Gates, don't let anyone with a D3 open a portal near you. If you sense anything off, tell me asap."_ Precautionary measures, that was all they were.

But the whole time, Taichi hadn't said anything beyond the occasional grunt – Koushirou wasn't even sure how long he'd listened. And though he'd tried to coax him into confiding his feelings, his only reward had been a gruff, "Will do, thanks," and a promise to be careful.

He'd texted Yamato then. It galled him that, in spite of Koushirou's loyalty and deep affection for Taichi, he always preferred Yamato when he needed to talk. Why that was, he didn't know – Koushirou always made himself available, let Taichi know he was there for him, patiently listened on the few occasions Taichi took advantage of that.

But in the end it didn't matter that Koushirou was hurt by the lack of trust his best friend put in him. The important thing was that Taichi needed to talk to someone, and for whatever reason he couldn't talk to Koushirou, and no one would expect him to confide in Hikari, who'd been made so vulnerable in the same way only a few years earlier. So it had to be Yamato.

Who hadn't returned his call, and when he finally did, had promised to come to the meeting and was at the very least late, if not a no-show.

And this was the friend Taichi trusted most?

Koushirou pushed all that to the back of his mind. He didn't like to dwell on that subject. Besides, he was the only Chosen who could hold the floor this way. He kept his attention on the computer screen. "This is the email Gennai sent me," he said, pulling up a tab. "Don't get too excited by what I'm about to tell you. The email's not too illuminating, but basically it says that the Digital Gates are naturally unstable – they flicker in and out of existence. Taichi-san got caught during one such interval. That's why Daisuke-san was able to push him out of the way; the Gate wasn't absorbing him, just overlapping his dimension. But –"

"That's great, Taichi!" Sora exclaimed. Daisuke let out a whoop.

Hikari's face split with relief. She swung her arms around her brother and kissed his cheek; laughing, Taichi extracted her and the hope on his face sent Koushirou's spirits plummeting even further.

Ken gave Koushirou a puzzled look and asked, "If that's all it was, why did you bother to call us all here?"

Koushirou shut his eyes briefly to gather himself. He hated to be the harbinger of bad news. Maybe he shouldn't have bothered showing them the email and raising their spirits, but – too late for any of that.

"The email came with an attachment," he reluctantly continued, "which took some finagling to open, but it… contradicts everything in the main message."

Silence fell over the group like a shroud. Their confusion was tangible, pervading the air. He could almost imagine the bird of hope fluttering away.

He opened the attachment. A beam of light shot from the screen, ballooning towards the far wall like a film projector. Every head turned and squinted as a face steadily materialized within the light. First a pale oval, then the jagged shadows of a nose and the sockets of eyes, unkempt white hair and rounded shoulders. From the many wrinkles across the plain of his forehead to his handlebar moustache, he was their guide: Gennai.

"Greetings, children. It's been a while." Gennai's voice crackled with static.

"That's Gennai!" Daisuke cried.

"He's old again," Hikari said.

"I can't tell where he is," Sora added, her eyes flickering over the dark expanse beyond the old man's head. "A cave, or some place?"

Taichi and Koushirou nodded at each other. "Yeah, it doesn't look like his home," Taichi murmured.

Gennai didn't have the power to deage himself anymore, and he'd left the comfort of his underwater home – none of that boded well for the Chosen.

"Well, well, it's been four years, weren't you expecting something like to happen? Ha!" Gennai laughed, or coughed; it was hard to distinguish as he covered his mouth with his sleeve. "At least you're used to the routine by now, so you'd better hightail it over here before we're in too deep and end up with another mess like Apocalymon."

Hikari might have cursed, but only Koushirou had the presence of mind to be shocked. The others were glued to Gennai's quivering hologram.

"There's a lot you don't know about." Gennai paused and seemed to consider his next words. "If I'd been free to tell you, I would have done so earlier. But the Sovereigns are, as you can surely imagine, rather stuck on their own ideas. And they're slow. If I'd been in charge, we would have avoided everything, but no, Digimon have to do things in order, in sequence. 'The time is not right,' yada yada yada.

"But let me address Koushirou's question. You email me so regularly and receive riddles for answers. I'd say I do it to increase your skills, but I don't know how much more refining you need, my boy.

"What you need to know is that the process which Taichi is currently undergoing is irreversible."

Now Koushirou couldn't tear his eyes from Taichi's stunned look. Nor could he move or speak. His tongue inflated like cotton in his throat.

"I'm sure you recall your final battle with Etemon, when MetalGreymon succeeded in shattering him and the Dark Network. You were so amazing that you ripped a hole in the sky – yes, indeed, _you_ did it. It was not already there. You created a wormhole without a destination, so the wormhole read your data and decided to drop you off in a familiar place; in this case, the park in your hometown.

"On that day, you were able to use your Digivice to return to Digiworld through a warp rather than a Gate. You became digital. We'd given all of you protection from that in the form of your Digivices, but falling through the warp ended it for you, Taichi. And that, I'm afraid, is a very bad thing.

"Once a non-Digital being is digitized, many doors open that were impossible to seek before. You traversed them without realizing it – when you passed through your computer to fight Diaboromon, when you returned to Digiworld to give up your Crest. Little by little, you've been losing your connection to your world, and becoming more and more a part of ours.

"I'm sure you have many questions. We'll arrange a visit soon, yes?"

Gennai's picture blinked and vanished.

* * *

The silence that followed seemed to stretch into eternity.

Taichi's shoulders shook. He covered his face with his hands and took a few raspy breaths. Then he seemed to come to his senses; his eyes narrowed, and he shot to his feet and raced to the wall –

"Wait a minute – wait a damn minute, you dirty old geezer –"

He pounded his fists where Gennai's torso had been only minutes before. "You can't just disappear! 'Losing your connection,' what the heck is that supposed to mean!"

"Taichi!" Sora cried, at the same time Daisuke yelled, "Cool it, Taichi-senpai!"

Jou barreled to his side and reached out a hand, but quickly drew it back at Taichi's withering glare.

Hikari was close to tears.

"Guys –" Koushirou waved his arms futilely, hoping someone would calm down long enough to listen to reason, "guys, hang on for a minute, we can't lose our heads –"

"Lose my _head!?"_ Taichi belted a violent laugh that struck Koushirou like a sock to the jaw. "I'm losing _more _than my _head,_ I'm turning into a – a – _Gennai!"_

"Enough."

The voice was deep and fluid, not loud, but firm and commanding. Hikari's sniffles, muted in Miyako's shoulder, were the only sound as Yamato stepped through the doorway.

He started to cross the room. Taichi brushed his hair away from his wet eyes and let out a snarl.

"You –" His voice was raw and mangled to the point that it was almost unrecognizable. "You _bastard,_ you never returned my call –"

Yamato came to a halt just in front of him. He towered over Taichi by a full four inches. Hunched against the wall, Taichi's face purpled with anger and he looked on the verge of throwing a punch.

He got as far as raising his fist, but let it hover uncertainly in the air. Yamato didn't give it a thought. He wrapped his fingers around Taichi's airborne wrist and locked eyes with him.

"I did return your call," he said with extraordinary calm. "It's not cool to cuss me out when I don't deserve it."

Slowly, Taichi's ragged breathing returned to normal. His fist unclenched, and Yamato let his arm drop to his side. Yamato put his hands on either of Taichi's shoulders and gripped him hard while Taichi struggled to pull himself together.

Then he said, quietly, "Koushirou, when are we heading to Digiworld?"

Startled at being addressed, Koushirou thought for a minute, and then said, "I'll have to ask Gennai for particulars. We don't know where he is or how to find him, and I don't think any of us are interested in wandering Digiworld aimlessly until we stumble over him."

"Especially if there's danger involved," Miyako put in.

Yamato nodded. "Find that out, then." Turning back to Taichi, he asked, "Do you want to go home?" Taichi's reply was too soft for Koushirou to hear.

Even the normally gregarious Daisuke was subdued as they tramped into the lobby and exited the gym. The sun glinted off glossy car roofs as it dipped behind the jigsaw puzzle of office buildings across the street. Someone was blasting a spicy hip-hop song from their car radio. The music sped past and they were left with the rhythm of the city pulsing in their ears.

Jou and Koushirou walked up to Taichi, side-by-side and united in concern. With his best bedside manner, Jou said, "It might not be as bad as it seems,"

Nodding, Taichi squeezed Koushirou's shoulder. Koushirou stiffened at the familiar touch, and tried not to look too bewildered when Taichi smirked at him.

"You know," Taichi began, "the next time you suspect something's up in Digiworld – call Yamato first, will ya?"

"Yeah, yeah," Yamato steered Taichi towards the crosswalk. "Of course you'd prefer it if I went digital."

"But you'd make such cute wallpaper for my desktop."

"I'm pretty sure I'm already gracing the desktops of thirteen-year-old girls nationwide. I'll send you a link to my fanlisting."

"Ooh, and then I can make kissing noises at the screen –"

Koushirou tuned them out. Let Yamato look after Taichi. Work whatever magic he had that made him such a valuable friend.

"Do you want me to…" Miyako gestured between herself and Hikari.

Hikari shook her head. "It's all right. I'll see you all soon." She hurried after her brother.

Ken nudged Daisuke, who lifted his head glumly. "Aren't we going in that direction too?" he asked.

Daisuke shrugged. Ken searched his face, and exchanged a look with Miyako. "What's wrong with you?" Miyako asked.

"Nothing," Daisuke mumbled and kicked a rock into the street. "Let's go."

He trudged down the crosswalk and Ken, wearing a bemused half-grin, hustled after him.

Sunlight enfolded the last four Chosen. Jou and Sora were failing at pretending not to study Koushirou, which was typical of them. None of the other Chosen really understood how difficult things were for Koushirou as he tried to mediate between two worlds, but Jou and Sora always innately knew when he felt overworked – probably because they were so used to the feeling themselves that they'd memorized the signs.

Sora's face suddenly cleared, as if she'd come to a decision. She tapped Koushirou's arm.

"Would you like to grab a bite to eat with me?" she asked with a soft, affectionate look.

Koushirou had never felt more grateful for Sora's intuitive grasp of other people's emotions. How she'd known exactly what he needed was a mystery considering until this moment he hadn't realized how reluctant he was to be alone himself.

But he read in her expression that she was afraid of that too. This was what she needed as much as he did.

"I'd love to," Koushirou said. "Thanks, Sora-san. Jou-san?"

He'd expected Jou to refuse, with the excuse of an exam or chores to be done. But Jou instantly brightened, and he replied,

"That would be great. Miyako-kun?"

"What? Oh – me?" Startled, a rosy blush colored Miyako's cheeks and she tugged at her shirt. "Well, I mean – curfew's not until ten –"

"Then come along." Koushirou smiled at her. "I wanted to talk to you about the computer club's bake sale anyway."

Miyako stared. "What bake sale?"

"The one we're holding to raise funds for new equipment," Koushirou said, starting down the street at a casual, easy pace. Jou and the girls fell into stride behind him and he sensed Miyako struggling for a reply.

"Don't worry," he reassured her, "you won't have to bake anything. Mom's key lime pie usually rakes in enough for the whole trimester by itself. But we need to discuss it anyway."

"Um… okay." Miyako still sounded confused.

Deciding to head somewhere close by, they turned Eastward towards the station. Koushirou resolved to push the gym and Taichi's fate out of his mind, at least for an hour or two.

* * *

**Chapter Notes:**

1.] I have no idea how real commercials are filmed. I drew from stories I've heard from my high school drama teachers. If anyone feels like offering up information, it's more than welcome, and I'll see how I can work it in.

2.] _The Sufferings of Young Werther: _I read it for a class and had to share. Really, you must read it. It's so much fun to cackle each time Werther fails to do himself in.

3.] _Soudai:_ Abbreviation for Waseda University, Tokyo.

4.] _Hyde's in _Dune: Hyde of the visual kei band L'arc~en~Ciel. Dune is an album and a song from 1993. Hyde's hair was pretty incredible back then.

_Please review, it really makes my day! Constructive criticism more than welcome._


	3. Enter the Emperor: All Rise

_A/N: Hi again! Thanks so much for your reviews. You're a really great bunch of readers. I've discovered the Reply to Review feature (yeah, I know, I'm a real Johnny-come-lately) and from now on I'll try to reply to each reviewer at least once to show my thanks!_

_After three revisions, Chapter 3 is finally completed. I hope you enjoy it. Please let me know if you think these chapters are too lengthy - I'm thinking of trimming down by a third for future chapters._

_Minor characters in this chapter: Yamato's bandmates (Michishita Yutaka - lead guitar; Mizuno Akira - keyboardist; Arai Takashi - drummer)_

* * *

**Chapter Three**

**Enter the Emperor: All Rise**

"_No man is rich enough to buy back his past."  
- Oscar Wilde_

** 07.28.2006**

** FRI**

Meals were served buffet-style at Aomori, although Takeru couldn't find much of a difference between the cafeteria set-up and a slop trough. He rocked on his heels in line, his tray balanced on one palm, and ignored the roughhousing and chaos ensuing behind him. After the dining hall had been open for a good ten minutes, the line for the buffet dragged right out the door, and the battle to snag a decent spot for access to the freshest food broke out in full swing. Monday through Thursday was the same deal: boys raced from the showers to the cafeteria, barely pausing to tie their shoes, in an effort to avoid getting left with scraps. Friday was even worse.

Friday was pizza day.

Juggling his milk carton in one hand, Takeru crept half an inch forward with the other famished campers as space freed up along the buffet. All he wanted was one slice of pepperoni pizza, preferably not burnt, and not picked over by fifty other dirty, sweaty fingers. He'd deemed Aomori's meal plan fairly decent, as far as frozen processed food went. But he couldn't call himself much of a culinary connoisseur – at home, with his mother too bogged down with work to remember to feed herself, let along her beanstalk of a son, he'd gotten used to instant ramen and Beef'n'Bean burritos in the microwave. Daisuke said they'd permanently addled his taste buds. Which he thought was funny, considering the way Daisuke inhaled everything placed in front of him without a thought for where it came from.

With a critical eye, he scouted out and laid claim to a sizable slice of pizza – no pepperoni, rather heavy on the cheese, but still more edible than what passed for tuna casserole on the next tray over – and headed towards the dining area. Nakata and his crowd had already congregated around a long table near a window. He set his tray down and was immediately drawn into conversation.

Takeru met Nakata Shigeo during a mini-game in which he was Nakata's mark. An elbow to the groin and a benching later, they started chatting to pass the time. Nakata was a high school freshman from some ritzy private school in Sangenjaya – Takeru's own hometown. Once they unearthed that tidbit, Nakata dropped all barriers and greeted him like a brother, even used Takeru's given name – though Takeru hadn't quite overcome his own sense of propriety to do the same. Nakata's friends were a ragtag group of middle and high school boys from various wards in Tokyo, plus one who'd traveled all the way from Iwate prefecture. They were a nice bunch, laid-back, and didn't indulge in a lot of muscle-flexing except in good fun.

For a while they talked of nothing but basketball – whose skills were ace, who was struggling, which coach was the most shameless flirt with their mothers. Topics strayed to school, video games, sightseeing in foreign countries. The story of Takeru's eccentric biker grandparents in France somehow came out, and suddenly he found himself bombarded with demands to teach the others French swear words.

A timid voice broke in, almost clean swallowed by the deafening roar of the cafeteria:

"Can I sit here?"

Takeru glanced up, a trail of sauce dribbling down his chin. A tallish, sandy-haired boy sporting a navy sweatband hesitated just beside the table with his hazel eyes fixed on Takeru. Takeru shrugged, looking around at his friends, then slid down the bench to make room.

"Thanks." The boy's tray clattered on the table and he parked himself next to Takeru. "Did you get very far in that book?"

Takeru stared at him blankly for a minute, before he recognized him as the boy who had commented on his reading during Wednesday's scrimmage. He finished off the chunk of pizza in his mouth.

"Oh, yeah, I finished it," he nodded. "It was interesting –"

"You've got stuff on your…" The boy gestured to his chin with one twirling finger.

Embarrassed, Takeru snatched up his napkin and smothered his face.

"It's gone," said his companion, cheerfully. "My name's Seiki by the way. Hosoda Seiki."

"Nice to meet you, Hosoda-kun," Takeru replied politely. "I'm Ta –"

"Takaishi Takeru-kun, I know," Seiki interrupted him yet again. His eyes scanned Takeru's face with an odd, searching glint. "It took me a couple of days, but I figured out who you are."

By now, Takeru's surprise had melted into curiosity as it dawned on him that Seiki was deliberately ignoring everyone else at their table. His cheeks warmed. He didn't like the way Seiki looked at him. Like he was a rare work of Jōmon era art, pleasant and puzzling to look at, something to be deciphered.

"I mean that it took me a while to figure out you're _that_ Takaishi Takeru," Seiki went on.

Takeru tried not to fidget. "Have we met before?"

"Briefly," Seiki said, casual as a housecat. "I'm not surprised you don't remember me. I wasn't one of the most outspoken. I could never forget any of you, though. You look different than you did back then."

Takeru's irrational sense of being hunted intensified. He found himself turning away, and picked up his seltzer water and gulped it down. Then someone tapped his shoulder.

"Up for a friendly game?" asked Nakata, a subtle, concerned crease in his brow. Takeru was impressed by how easily he'd picked up on his discomfort. "The court by the parking lot is free, and I've got my own ball."

Takeru wasn't particularly thrilled about playing more basketball after doing little else all day – all _week_ – but, under Seiki's surveying gaze, being anywhere but the cafeteria suddenly seemed ideal. He nodded and stood. "Yeah, let's go."

"Can I come?" Seiki swiveled around on the bench while the others deserted the table, watching them eagerly.

Takeru and Nakata exchanged a wary glance. "Sure, but don't you want to finish eating first?" Nakata said, waving a hand at Seiki's untouched plate.

"Why don't you meet up with us when you're done?" Takeru suggested.

For a moment he thought Seiki saw through their ruse. His smile drooped a bit, which was somehow more alarming than his creepy look of interest. But then he swung his legs back under the table, bending over his tray.

"You're right! I hadn't even noticed. I'll meet you out there then. Okay?"

"Sure thing." Takeru offered him a kind, slightly apologetic grin, a wave of guilt washing over him. He was amazed at himself. Why was he being so hard on this kid, whom he'd only known for a few minutes? Being suspicious, prejudging – that wasn't like Takeru. He might not always go out of his way to be social, but he was never unfriendly on purpose. "We'll catch up with you later, Hosoda-kun."

Nakata led his pack out the dining hall to the outdoor court. Takeru shuffled along at the rear, hands thrust in his pockets. In the hall he paused and looked over his shoulder.

Seiki was watching him, hunched over his knees, hands clasped together. From a distance Takeru couldn't be certain, but he thought he saw him smirking.

* * *

** 07.30.2006**

** SUN**

Sleep proved a slippery companion that weekend. Friday night, Hikari's eyelids stung with the effort to keep them closed. Finally she abandoned sleep and spent the night seeing how long she could keep Takeru awake exchanging text messages. Saturday brought only a small improvement, and not until the first rays of dawn filtered through her window. But she left Takeru alone as a reward for surviving her until 5 a.m. the other night.

On Sunday morning, she awoke to Miko curled up by her knees at 4:30, and tossed and turned with the morning light burning her heavy eyes. By 7, she knew there was no chance of falling back asleep amid the din of automobiles and motorbikes in full gear outside. She disentangled herself from her sheets and stumbled over to her dresser. A sickly ghost's face, gaunt and deeply shadowed, met her hollow stare in the mirror. Selecting a concealer brush, she worked meticulously to hide the evidence of her restless night.

Maybe the Sandman was skipping her room on purpose, knowing he would only bring nightmares, and other guests of the most sinister kind.

She didn't need his help to terrify herself with thoughts of the danger courting her brother.

She showered and, after snapping on a pink utility dress and clipping her hair back with a butterfly barrette, ventured to the kitchen to scrounge for food. She found her mother half-awake on the sofa and wrapped in a bathrobe, a steaming cup of coffee in her hands. Taichi lounged beside her with the remote control balanced on his knee. Both greeted her with identical pre-caffeine lethargy.

Taichi had been an early riser since childhood, but Yagami Yuuko loved her sleep. That she'd emerged from her bedroom before ten on a Sunday was a shock Hikari's sleep-deprived brain wasn't fit to register. Tripping on the hardwood floor, she threw her hands out and staggered into the counter.

"G'morning, sweetie," Yuuko said, with a bleary glance at her daughter. "Want breakfast? There's quiche in the fridge."

Hikari tentatively opened the refrigerator door and stuck her head in, half-expecting to be assaulted by a ravenous quiche monster that had inexplicably become sentient and evil overnight.

"Yamato and I made it," Taichi put in, guessing her thoughts. "It's cheese and bacon. A manly quiche."

Relieved, she lugged the quiche out of the fridge and cut herself a slice. Leave it to Taichi and Yamato to decide, at one a.m., that now was the perfect time to make quiche.

"This is your idea of a midnight snack?" she mumbled while reheating her breakfast in the oven.

She received no answer besides an amused chuckle. Nothing more was needed. Before high school had so completely absorbed most of their free time, Taichi and Yamato used to keep their kitchens stocked with home-made treats – pies and breaded noodles and curry udon. Hikari could reference the exact time they'd become too busy for each other, because she'd once again fallen victim to her mother's questionable-at-best cooking.

Her brother appeared in the kitchen with an empty mug, which he rinsed and dumped in the sink. She started as his arm hooked around her shoulders, drawing her in for a quick hug.

"You're up early today," he commented lightly, with an ease to his voice that had been absent since Friday's news.

Yamato had worked hard to lift Taichi's spirits. He'd stayed over until close to three that Friday, teasing Taichi with jokes and friendly insults, and then refused to sleep over on account of band practice in the morning. He'd acted as if not a single unusual thing had happened – acted so normal that, for a while, they forgot the enormity of their troubles. But Saturday found Taichi uncharacteristically aloof and subdued. He kept to himself in their father's study until Susumu chewed him out for worrying Hikari and his mother, and so he contritely joined them for dinner. He even pretended to go along with his father's worn out dinner table jokes.

Today – whether it was because he'd finally managed to sleep through the night, or because his friends' combined medicines to cheer him up had finally kicked in – he seemed a little more like himself.

He rummaged through the cabinet and withdrew with his teeth clamped around a blueberry Poptart. Hikari suppressed a shudder (how could he eat them cold? Were his taste buds on strike?) and explained:

"I promised Daisuke-kun I'd meet him. Iori-kun returned from vacation last night, so today we're going swimming."

She didn't want to mention Digiworld with their mother in hearing range, and waited while Taichi puzzled that out. His expression cleared soon enough. "Oh! Okay. Well, keep your D-terminal on you. And no drunken beach sex or I'll ship you off to a nunnery."

Leaving his sister to sputter in shock, he returned to the couch to give his full attention to his sugary meal.

Hikari joined them with her breakfast and a cup of tea. They flipped through the channels and settled on some cartoons, Taichi entertaining his girls with cheeky commentary, and Yuuko retorting that no son of hers could speak of Doraemon with anything less than the utmost respect.

At quarter after nine Hikari pulled on her sandals and opened the front door.

"You're leaving now?" Taichi asked, poking his head out of the bathroom with his toothbrush dangling from his mouth.

"Yeah. We need to get an early start, because Miyako-san has to work in the afternoon."

Taichi nodded, quiet and thoughtful. He let his gaze drift to a vase by the telephone. "I wish I were going too," he said wistfully.

Hikari froze.

"You can't," she stammered. "Koushirou-san doesn't want you near any Digital Gates –"

"I know. I just wish I could." He made a frustrated noise. "You know what Tuesday is, don't you?"

Their anniversary. She knew.

He sighed, but offered her a smile, and went back to teasing. "Anyway, Daisuke won't be up yet. It's Sunday. He'll be unconscious till noon."

"He'll be up," Hikari replied, already shutting the door behind her. "There's no way even his bull-headedness can outlast the combined powers of Ken-kun and Jun-san."

* * *

"I hate you," Daisuke declared, sagging over a bowl of Fruit Loops. "I hate you, and your damn internal alarm clock, and for pete's sake, why were you getting tanked with my sister at eight in the morning?"

"I was not 'getting tanked' with your sister," Ken said sternly. He gestured to the piping hot bowl of soup on his placemat. "It was cognac. We needed it to make French onion soup."

"Sounds nauseating." Daisuke made a face and Ken chuckled into his bowl, which only annoyed Daisuke further. First he had to wake up at some ungodly hour, only to find his best friend and his sister fraternizing in his kitchen with a bottle of alcohol between them. _Then_ they ridiculed him for misinterpreting the situation, even though it was so obviously a farce – Jun would flirt with any unsuspecting Y chromosome, as long as he fit her idea of attractive. If Ken thought she'd leave him alone just because of a three year age gap, he had another thing coming.

Daisuke considered himself a good best friend, and therefore it was his duty to protect Ken from his sister's mania. (One of these days he would write a book documenting all the symptoms of Jun-itis, which would sell millions and win tons of awards and they'd stick his name in elementary school textbooks and all that jazz.) At the same time, Ken's deer-in-headlights look when Daisuke stormed in on them hurling accusations just as Jun's arm was snaking its way around his shoulders had been priceless.

"Eat, Daisuke," Ken pressed, scraping his chair back and taking his own bowl to the sink. Daisuke heard the water run and Ken's hands scrubbing the bowl clean. "You've got perfectly good toxic cereal that will keep you buoyant enough to bounce off walls all day long. You'll be pre-diabetic before you're 30. Stop complaining about being tired."

Daisuke pouted and stirred his spoon absently. "I'm supposed to last the whole day on this?" he complained, staring at his measly "breakfast." "You want me to collapse from malnourishment?"

"I think you'll survive. Next time get up on time."

"This is cruel and unusual punishment."

The doorbell chimed, and Daisuke shot out of his chair like a bullet. "Hikari-chaaaan!" he sang, grinning broadly and dragging her inside by the arm. "This is great! I get you all to myself today. Let's do something wild and ridiculously irresponsible to shock Take-dork with when he gets back from finishing school."

Hikari rolled her eyes, smiling as she let herself be marched into the kitchen. "He'll be glad to know you're thinking of him. Hi, Ken-kun."

"Good morning." Ken raised a soapy hand in greeting. "Would you like a drink?"

"Oh, I'm not –"

"Hey, hey, it's my house, _I_ get to play host." Daisuke steered Hikari to a chair. "Ken and Jun made some kind of witch's brew which I'm sure you don't want. But there are muffins! Here, you like blueberry, right?"

He tossed one over his shoulder and Hikari caught it deftly. "Actually, that's my brother," she giggled, "but blueberry's good."

"How's Taichi-san doing?" Ken asked with concern. He wiped his hands with a dish towel and perched on the edge of the table.

Hikari opened her mouth to reply, but Daisuke cut her off: "He's fine. He's _Taichi-san,_" he said with unflagging certainty. "Besides, I'm sure Hikari-chan's sick of people hounding her about her brother."

The look that passed between Ken and Hikari irritated him a little. He hated when people shared secrets with each other and left him out. Worst of all, he didn't know if they were eyeing each other like that because, as usual, he was talking too much, or because he'd missed some pertinent point.

Thankfully the doorbell rang again, distracting Ken and Hikari from tossing each other furtive looks as Daisuke dashed to answer it. Miyako and Iori entered, loaded down with plastic bags.

Miyako breezed into the kitchen without bothering to say hello. "Guess what! Iori went to Hakone and brought us back _kurotamago!"_

She passed around the bag containing the small black chicken eggs, and each Chosen thanked Iori and took one.

"They are supposed to increase your life span," Iori said. "My grandfather says it's true, because they're boiled in hot springs. He thinks the hot springs have de-aged him by twenty years."

"Yeah, his skin looked baby-soft when I saw him this morning!" Miyako added enthusiastically.

Both Ken's eyebrows nearly shot off his face. Daisuke snorted milk up his nose.

"Are we ready to go? Since Miyako-san needs to be back by one, we should hurry." Iori took one look at Daisuke's almost-finished bowl and reached out to take it away.

Daisuke clutched it protectively. "You just got back and already you're abusing me." He lifted the bowl to his lips and drained it of its contents. Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he pushed back in his chair and jumped up. "Okay, let's roll!"

They filed into Daisuke's bedroom, pausing to duck as Jun hurled a hair brush at Daisuke while spitting threats and curses. Daisuke suspected it had something to do with his using the last of her shampoo (it wasn't like he _wanted_ to smell of coconut milk and flowers, but what could he do? He'd run out of Flex).

Daisuke started his PC and let Miyako set up the portal. "It's been a while," Miyako said before they dove in. "In spite of the circumstances, I'm glad to be going back."

"It's no surprise," Daisuke nodded. "I like Digiworld. I like Veemon. I don't think it's their fault that… you know."

He cleared his throat as color rose to his cheeks. He was the only one looking at Hikari; the others conspicuously turned away. "Anyway… Miyako, want to do the honors?"

Miyako raised her red D3. "Digi-Port, open."

They were encompassed by a familiar flash of bright light, followed by the dizzying sensation of falling head-over-heels. Daisuke always found it a little disconcerting that they could never see where they were landing, or when the ground was rushing towards them. It was like – all of a sudden – _whump._

He blinked, finding himself beneath a bright sky, and waited for the vertigo to pass. Luckily they were so used to the whole process by now that no one would get sick –

_"Bleargh!"_

"I warned you not to eat that second egg."

* * *

They ended up in a dense forest, full of ancient oaks climbing toward the sky and a maze of giant overhanging branches. Sunlight peeked through the leafy canopy and speckled the ground, which was covered in a layer of springy moss. Brushing aside sweeping fern fronds, Daisuke led the way through the thick foliage, trailed closely by Ken, who he could see arching his neck forward and scowling at something ahead of them.

Miyako leaned heavily on Hikari's arm, still slightly green and tilting her head away from the group. After she'd decided she felt well enough to walk, the others divvied out her bags among them, and Iori lectured her on the sin of gluttony off and on for a good ten minutes. Daisuke was amused until Iori started in on him.

He grumbled to himself about _kouhai_ and their lack of respect towards their elders. A wayward frond seized its chance to smack the side of his head while he was distracted. He flinched, cursing, and fell back with his fingers at his temple.

"Daisuke, you're bleeding." Ken grabbed his elbow and forced his hand away so he could inspect the wound. "It's shallow," he announced with relief. "Miyako-san – bandages?"

"I've got them." Miyako grabbed Iori and nearly ripped the plastic bag he was carrying right off him. "And here's some Neosporin, just in case."

"It's not bad enough for that," Daisuke grumbled, flinching as Ken daubed the cut with a cloth.

"You were attacked by a plant," Hikari exclaimed in disbelief. Squeezing past Ken and Miyako, she replaced Daisuke at the lead and balanced on her tiptoes, surveying the area.

"This is Digiworld, Hikari-chan. We've been attacked by creatures that look like regurgitated Caesar salads. Why are you surprised?"

"Listen, we've seen a lot of strange things in this world, but we've never been attacked by anything that wasn't a Digimon –"

She broke off with a sudden yelp, and stumbled back as Daisuke's assassin frond took a swing at her as well. Snatching it with both hands, Hikari threw all her weight against the plant and bent it back, gasping at the strength and flexibility of its stipe. Daisuke and Ken took hold of the other end, and together they folded it until its tip meant the ground. There was a satisfying _snap._

Something fumbled about just out of their sight, escaping with quick but noisy leaps. Bellowing a well-practiced war holler, Daisuke lunged clumsily into the undergrowth. His hands brushed something slimy and with the texture of a cheese round. It made a desperate gurgling noise, but Daisuke locked it to his chest with his arms as the others caught up to him.

Hikari was the first to arrive. "Sukamon!" she cried, dropping to her knees and extracting the strange little creature from Daisuke's grip. She held him tenderly, and Daisuke could now make out his quivering, unnaturally long tongue, and the teeth that surrounded his entire body, dividing maxilla and mandible.

"Why did you attack us?" Hikari asked, stroking Sukamon's head (which composed more or less all he was) while he huddled against her. "Where's Chuumon?"

"Is this the same Sukamon you guys met way back in the day?" Daisuke knelt in front of Hikari, turning an apologetic grin on Sukamon. "Sorry, pal. But I wouldn't have grabbed at you like that if you hadn't been hitting us with leaves."

Sukamon only whimpered and clawed at Hikari with his bony fingers. His nails dragged down the length of her arm, leaving red trails in their wake. Daisuke's brow drew in anger and he leaned forward to pull Sukamon away, but was stopped by a warning look from Hikari.

He withdrew, but eyed her in such a way as to let her know he didn't approve. If she wanted to make herself vulnerable to such a volatile Digimon, that was her business. But he didn't have to like it.

Meanwhile, Ken had left Miyako and Iori with their bags, and trudged over to Daisuke's side. He put a hand on Daisuke's shoulder as he lowered himself to the ground, and murmured softly in his ear.

"Everything all right?"

Daisuke shrugged. "Hikari-chan knows him. I don't get it. How come Veemon and the others weren't here to meet us when we arrived?"

Ken frowned in thought. "Yes, we probably wouldn't have been attacked if they'd been here –" he started to say, but was cut off as Sukamon let out a shriek of terror.

"Sukamon!" Hikari cried, tightening her hold on the struggling creature. Sukamon squirmed and batted at her with his fists. "Calm down! You know me!"

But Sukamon only thrashed about more wildly, losing a little more control every time it set its eyes on the Chosen – and Ken.

"Do something!" Hikari cried helplessly.

Daisuke glanced up at Ken, who had taken a few steps back. Daisuke couldn't see his face, but his posture was rigid and he shrank against the base of a tree.

Sukamon struck Hikari on the chin and wrenched her hands apart. She fell back, and Sukamon tried to bound away. On a reflex, Daisuke's arm shot out and grabbed Sukamon's torso roughly.

"Will you _knock it off?"_

"It's the _Emperor!"_ Sukamon shouted. Miyako and Iori, just appearing through the archway of fronds, froze in place. Speechless, Daisuke loosened his grip, and Sukamon plummeted to the ground. The Digimon scampered deep into the woods, his terrified wails becoming more and more muffled by the wall of trees.

"It's the Emperor, the Emperor, he's come back!"

No one bothered to chase him down.

* * *

Daisuke gradually made his way to Ken. He stared at his best friend, bent into himself, as if trying to grow small and invisible against the large trunk of his tree. Daisuke could hear his breathing through his hands, soft and ragged.

"Ken – Ken –" Miyako's lower lip quivered, her eyes big and shining. Daisuke wondered if she even realized she'd dropped her normal honorific for Ken.

Hikari and Iori both took one of Miyako's arms, and they wandered just out of sight beyond several slender, towering trees. Their hushed conversation was lost in a fog of noise, easily tuned out, but always comfortingly close by.

Ken didn't acknowledge them. Rooted firmly in place by shock or grief, only his shoulders moved with each heavy breath. After a moment's pause, Daisuke touched Ken's shoulder, and though Ken's position didn't change, he didn't shy away either.

He knew Ken only needed a minute to compose himself, but still it took all his willpower not to speak. Actually, he felt like laughing. Nothing he saw was the least bit funny, but the stifling lack of sound made his tongue feel like lead in his mouth.

It came as a surprise when Ken was the first to break the silence.

"That, I wasn't expecting," he said, and made some sound that could have been a laugh, but struck Daisuke as far more frustrated than amused.

"It's about time this world stopped tormenting you," Daisuke growled in return, giving Ken's shoulder another firm pat.

Ken shook his head, his mane of dark hair spilling over his face. "I don't have the right to ask for anyone's forgiveness before they're ready." He took a shuddering breath, finally turning to look at Daisuke. "Digiworld is a huge place. And we haven't come here overmuch in the past few years. We can't expect the whole world to know that I… I've changed."

"But it's not fair," Daisuke fumed. "You helped fix everything. You saved the world."

"Most of those last battles took place on Earth. They're just the stuff of legends here – to Digimon who even know about them at all."

"But you were _used!_ You're not responsible –"

"Daisuke, enough, alright?" Ken snapped. "To some extent I _am_ responsible, I've accepted that, and denying it doesn't help anyone."

Taken aback, all Daisuke could think to do was go back to the others. Ken had made it clear he wasn't interested in this conversation, so he expected him to follow. But a moment later Ken called from behind:

"Look, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have shouted at you."

Daisuke turned around. Ken was still sagging against the same tree, looking world-weary and somehow as young as he'd been when he'd first donned the Emperor's cloak and guise. Daisuke cursed his impatience. He reached up to scratch his chin.

"I just hate to see you in pain," he said miserably. "When you've already gone through enough for ten Kens."

For the first time, Ken smiled. He clambered down to Daisuke on the flat ground and slipped an arm around his shoulder. "I know. I appreciate it, Daisuke." He squeezed his arm, then glanced ahead of them. "We should get back to the others before Miyako-san has time to think up a new way to lift up my spirits."

"She's probably halfway through planning your Get-Well-Soon party," Daisuke joked back, falling into step beside his tall friend. His senses were still heightened, trying to gauge Ken's mood, but Ken appeared to have lapsed into a period of calm. Maybe it was just like he'd said: he'd accepted his life as it was.

They found their teammates huddled around Miyako's D3. When Miyako heard them, relief spread plain across her face. Iori and Hikari were more subtle, dipping their heads in Ken's direction and then moving on as if nothing had happened.

"Miyako-san's got a light on her D3," Hikari explained. "We don't know what it is, but we think it could be Hawkmon."

"It's about time!" Daisuke tramped over to her. "But why would he be traveling alone?"

"That's why we have to be cautious," Iori said.

"Miyako, this means you take the lead." Daisuke gave her a push forward. Miyako yelped and shot him a dirty look. Then her eyes fell on Ken. For a moment Daisuke thought she would bring up what Sukamon had done, and braced himself for another meltdown.

Miyako shoved the First Aid kit at Ken. "You carry this," she said.

Ken blinked at the bag. "Um, okay?" He took the kit from her and slung it over his shoulder.

"Since I'm in the lead, it's better if someone who won't be distracted carries it," Miyako went on. She tucked some hair behind her ear and planted her hands on her hips.

"I got it," Ken nodded. The corners of his mouth lifted. "Don't worry. If you get attacked by any wild ferns, I'll be right there with the antiseptic."

"Good," Miyako replied with a satisfied nod. "Then let's go."

She set off, flanked on either side by Iori and Hikari like a pair of sentries. Daisuke exchanged a look with Ken. A slow smile crossed Ken's face, which quickly morphed into a full-blown smirk. He patted the kit and sauntered after them.

Ken's dark moods didn't take him very often anymore. And it was becoming much easier to cheer him up when something happened to remind him of those dark days. But there were times when it seemed that some shadow came to linger over Ken, cast by a titan none of them could see or dream of fighting. Those times reminded Daisuke more than anything that the horrors in Ken's past had never been defeated, just swept under the rug.

_And there they'll stay._ Daisuke set his jaw.

Maybe they could invest in full room carpeting.

* * *

The doorbell rang three times before Yamato finally answered it. Even then, it wasn't he who noticed the bell, but Akira, who had thrown himself across Yamato's couch in front of the TV while the rest of the band huddled in the kitchen. They were messing with a new tune Yamato had been toying with over the period since the commercial shoot when Akira's voice suddenly cut through:

"Yamato, do you want to get the door or what?"

Yamato stared at him blankly, fingers poised on a G chord. He shrugged and, peeling off the guitar strap, picked his way carefully through the scattered equipment cluttering the floor in the hall.

He opened the door to Taichi's gleeful face.

"Yamato! I have amazing news. You might need to sit down for this," he announced, gripping Yamato's shoulders. Something behind Yamato caught his eye and he let go with a sheepish laugh. "Oh, sorry. Didn't know you had company. Hey, Mizuno."

Akira saluted him with a beer can before going back to his game show. "Yo."

"That's okay," Yamato said easily, leaning against the doorframe. "We're not doing much, just trying to keep cool."

"On that note, would you mind inviting us in?" Taichi asked.

Yamato obliged, making room for him to squeeze through the narrow doorway. He craned his neck to catch a glimpse of whoever had come with Taichi – and his mouth went dry.

"Hi, Yamato."

Sora's carrot red hair was cropped shorter than ever, parted at the side and curled in a graceful bob. She wore a minimal amount of make-up, just enough to bring out the color in her cheeks. She paused in front of him, biting her lower lip, searching his face as if there she'd find a hint of what he was feeling.

He lifted his chin as she passed into the _genkan_ without another word. Swinging the door shut, Yamato kicked their shoes aside and headed to Akira and the couch. He pulled the tab off a can of beer and took a gulp.

"You want any?" he called to his visitors.

Taichi looked like he was considering it, but Sora turned to him with a wrinkled nose and his expression changed. Yamato caught on and his frown deepened. He knew Sora was no stranger to drink – except in his company, apparently.

"Nah, I think we're good," Taichi said cheerfully in that way of his, oblivious to the mounting tension in the room.

"Yagami!" Yutaka crowed, leaping over a kitchen chair to drive his fist into Taichi's forearm. "Sora-chan too! Long time no see, girl!" he cried, pulling Sora into a swift hug that shocked her into dropping her handbag.

Taichi winced and massaged his arm. "Geez, Michishita, you don't greet your mom that way, do you?"

Yutaka belted a laugh, throwing an arm around Taichi in a familiar way that made Yamato hold back a sigh. Yutaka was a great guitarist, but he had no concept of social boundaries.

During their years as an unknown garage band, when their usual audience was comprised of longsuffering family members and a few encouraging friends, Taichi and Sora were a couple of their regulars. They'd come by during practices too, if the timing didn't conflict with their sports schedules, and that became more frequent for Sora after she began dating Yamato. Around the same time, those visits became noticeably fewer for Taichi.

Early on there were jokes about appointing Taichi and Sora honorary members of the band, or "exalted groupies" as Taichi preferred to call them. But the dynamics of the relationship among the three of them changed after Yamato and Sora broke up. Between Yamato and Sora, it was almost nonexistent.

"So what's the great news?" Yamato knocked Akira's hand off the arm of the couch and took a seat there, nursing his beer.

Taichi's grin broadened, somehow, and he nudged Sora with his elbow. "Do you want to tell him?" He was practically jumping in place, a completely different Taichi from the morose person Yamato had coaxed out of depression only two days ago.

Sora nudged him back. "Go ahead, silly, tell him before you burst."

Bursting seemed like a definite threat. "Out with it, Taichi," Yamato teased, "or Takashi will start singing." From somewhere in the kitchen came a howl of protest.

"Okay." Taichi spread his hands, palms up. "So you know what the day after tomorrow is."

Yamato stared at him, uncomprehending. "It's… Tuesday?"

"Oh Lord." Sora's arms dropped to her side. "You can't not remember!"

Yamato bristled and had to work hard to curb his temper. Funny how she could raise his hackles with barely a word.

She grew even more irate at his silence. "Our anniversary, Yamato!" she cried, now flinging her arms wide.

For a tense moment Yamato thought she was referring to _their_ anniversary – which was in January, and which they hadn't celebrated in years. Every fiber in him wanted to shout back, take her to task for coming here just to rub salt in his wounds.

His fury must have shown on his face. As soon as he stood up Taichi quickly stepped between them, considerably less chipper.

"Camp, Yamato," he clarified, glancing between them. "August 1st. Our anniversary."

"When we first met," Sora added for the benefit of their captive audience. Akira and Yutaka were both frozen in place, and Takashi had drifted over to the kitchenette counter for a better view.

Yamato's shoulders drooped as the truth dawned on him. _Damn._ Now he looked like a real winner.

"Oh," he said. _Nice recovery._

Sora clenched her arms over her chest. Yamato recognized it as her _I suffer the jerks of the world in martyr-like silence_ posture and almost flinched.

Valiantly plowing on, Taichi continued, "So, I know we don't usually do anything until the middle of August, so we can celebrate with Hikari –" _Myotismon's defeat,_ Yamato registered, "– but Sora and I were thinking that this year, at least we old-timers could do something fun on the 1st too. Be_caaaause…"_

He paused for dramatic effect, which took seven seconds to incubate – Yamato counted.

"Mimi-chan's coming back!" he exclaimed at last.

Yamato's brow lifted. "Wasn't she due sometime next week?"

"She's coming down early to stay with Sora," Taichi replied. "It's all been arranged."

"She called me very last minute to tell me she'd quit her job at the mall and wanted to come over now instead of later," Sora explained. "Remember last year she couldn't come at all because of her dad's fall down the stairs? She wants to make up for lost time."

"I can't believe she has the money to switch flights on such short notice," Yamato said with a shake of his head. "How long is she staying?"

"Four weeks, until the new term in America begins," Sora said. "So will you come with us to meet her?"

"Meet her?"

"At the airport," Taichi said. "Sora's driving to Narita Airport on Tuesday to pick her up. I'm gonna tag along. Jou and Koushirou already promised to come too."

Yamato looked down at his hands, which were occupied in picking at the threadbare couch. He hadn't even realized it. "I don't know," he said at last. "I mean, this is real short notice."

"Tell me about it. We haven't even finished making space for her at home," Sora said. Yamato couldn't tell whether or not that was a dig at his pathetic reason for not wanting to come along.

"Yeah, well. I'll think about it. We – the band – we have a lot of work to do, so no promises."

Taichi seemed ready to leave it at that, but Sora pursed her lips, expression incredulous. "Work? Even this Tuesday?" She picked up an empty can and held it aloft like a trophy. "You call lounging around with alcohol and watching game shows _work?"_

"We're taking a _break,_ Sora!" Yamato countered. "And Akira's the only one watching TV!"

"That's 'cause any other time I do more work than the rest of you put together," Akira muttered under his breath.

"This is exactly how you were when we were dating," Sora hissed.

"What are you saying? That I'm _lazy?"_

"I'm saying that you use this band as an excuse to ignore your friends!" Her voice was growing shriller by the minute. Before long his windows would shatter.

"Sora, just drop it," Taichi said in a tone obviously meant just for her, but audible to all. For no good reason, Yamato's anger sparked at him too. Even if he was asking her to lay off, something in his manner made it obvious he was taking her side.

She wouldn't listen anyway. "Last year you said you couldn't even come to the anniversary picnic because you had to practice."

"I _did_ have to practice," Yamato seethed.

"And you couldn't have rescheduled? You couldn't have come by even for a few minutes?"

Yamato dug his fingers into his hair. A harsh laugh burst out, surprising even him with its warmth. "You want to know why we broke up? _This_ is why. Miss Nag-and-pout. Why did I even let you in here?"

_"I_ broke up with _you!"_ she shot back tearfully. "Do you ever think why – and I – I – I have to get out of here. I'm going."

She fumbled for her handbag. Yamato stalked ahead of her and flung open the door. "Be my guest!" He made a mock bow and flourished his hand.

"Yamato." Taichi scowled at him. "Don't."

"I didn't start it this time," he retorted. "You should go too."

"Fine," Taichi snapped, brushing by him and scrounging for his shoes. Sora was out the door before he got the first one on his foot. "You really piss me off sometimes, you know."

"Right, 'cause not wanting to make a last minute trip to the airport is such a crime!" Yamato fumed. "It's not like I said I never wanted to see Mimi at all!"

"I thought you guys were over this," Taichi mumbled, heading outside.

"Yeah, well, we're not. Tough."

Taichi swiveled on his heel and pinned him with a look. Yamato stared him down, stubbornly refusing to make peace, even though it wasn't Taichi with whom he was upset.

Finally Taichi sighed, glancing over his shoulder at Sora waiting for him by the stairs. "I'll call you later," he said, moving away.

A little surprised that he hadn't been the one to give in, Yamato gave a curt nod. "Alright. Bye."

He waited until Taichi met up with Sora. They stood by the rail talking for a minute. Taichi's arm slipped around her, and though she didn't lean in to him, Yamato noticed some of the tension ease from her shoulders. He shut the door and touched his forehead to it, willing his temper to simmer down. Footsteps in the hall brought him back to reality and he turned to Yutaka and Takashi loitering nearby.

"So… are we done here?" Yutaka asked. He was carrying his guitar case as if he meant to leave regardless.

Blood rushed to Yamato's face. Without answering, he swept into the kitchen and started on the dirty dishes. The rush of water from the faucet filled his ears, drowning out his bandmates' good-byes, and the slam of the door as they left – Yutaka couldn't do anything quietly.

"See you later, Yamato," Akira said from the doorway.

Yamato jumped at his voice. "See you."

Akira shifted his weight to his other foot. "What ever happened between you two?" he stammered out, uncomfortable as ever asking after someone's personal life. Yamato had never known Akira to be nosy. He scowled at him over the counter.

"I don't really know," he confessed. "It's like she said. She broke up with me. She had reasons… I never thought they were good enough." He snatched a towel off the rack and wiped his hands.

"So you're still interested in her?"

"I didn't say that," he snapped. "I've barely even seen her over the past couple years. These days Taichi has to promise her the moon to get her to go to our concerts."

"Okay, okay, I wasn't trying to insinuate anything," Akira replied smoothly. "Just wondering. Because I don't want you to get involved in anything that could compromise the band."

"Like?"

"Like anything that could stain our rep. We're teetering on the edge, Yamato – we'll make it or break it with this next single. Pretty much any scandal would end our contract. Girls always lead to scandals."

Tight-lipped, Yamato turned his back to Akira, steadily wiping down the dishes. "Lucky for you there's no girl."

"That's good. But just think about what I said. This band can't afford to lose you."

He closed the door much more gently than Yutaka as he left, leaving Yamato alone with the drone of the TV and a litter of empty cans. Alone with his thoughts.

The band couldn't afford to lose Yamato. But Yamato wasn't at all sure he'd mind losing the band.

* * *

**Chapter Notes:**

1.] _Jōmon era art:_ Jōmon culture was responsible for the doguu statues, including Shakoukidoguu, from which Ankylomon and Angemon's DNA digivolved form, Shakkoumon, was derived. Yes, I'm trying to be clever.

2.] _kurotamago:_ Literally, "black egg." They are chicken eggs boiled in hot springs, which turns the shells black from the minerals. (But they taste like regular hard-boiled eggs.) If you eat one, your life will be extended by seven years. Eating more than two isn't a good idea because you could decrease your life span. I have no idea if they make good souvenirs or if they spoil too quickly… Iori's mom probably has magical powers of preservation. ;)

3.] _kouhai:_ The opposite of "senpai" – the junior member in a scenario.

4.] _genkan:_ Entranceway where shoes are taken off and replaced with slippers.

Wild guess which Digimon looks like a regurgitated Caesar salad.

_Please review... I'll do my best to get chapter 4 up quickly!_


	4. Of Rights and Privileges

_A/N: Hey, we're back! Wow, winter has just flown by! Believe me when I say I've been busy. (I'm sorreeee!) In fact, I should be writing a paper right now. But I've been working hard on this chapter, and even actually like it a little. ;) It's a rare day that I am happy with the way I portray a character like Koushirou, or with Taichi's dialogue. In fact, it's my favorite chapter yet, although it might not be yours._

_Thank you for all your awesome reviews! I hope this chapter is worth how long I made you wait._

* * *

**Chapter Four**

**Of Rights and Privileges**

"_If there's one thing on this planet you don't look like, it's a bunch of good luck walkin' around."  
- Cormac McCarthy, _No Country for Old Men

** 07.30.2006**

** SUN**

Their trek took them deeper into the digital forest, following the north-bound trail indicated by Miyako's D3. As the trees thickened, the sky above became dark with the gray bellies of clouds, and a harsh wind picked up. Miyako couldn't help shivering, though it was more than the wind that bothered her. Something about this wood tickled her memory.

Coming to a small clearing, it dawned on her why that sense of déjà vu was so strong. She came to a sudden halt, glancing cautiously from her D3 screen to the foreboding sky. Behind her, Hikari collided with Iori and both tumbled to the ground.

"Are you okay?" Iori asked, rolling off of her and rising to his knees.

"What's the matter, Miyako-san?" Hikari pushed herself up and made her way to Miyako's side.

Miyako continued to squint at the treetops. "I've been here before," she said. She took a few steps into the center of the clearing. "Yeah, I'm sure of it – Hawkmon's temple."

"Hawkmon's what?" Daisuke threw an incredulous look at her. "Look, we all love our partners, but no one's about to start a religion based on –"

"Shut up, Daisuke," Miyako said impatiently. _When did that become my mantra?_ "I mean the temple where I first met Hawkmon – when he and Armadillomon came out of the Digi-Eggs of Love and Knowledge."

"Are you sure?" Hikari asked. She craned her head uneasily. "It doesn't look familiar to me."

"It's not that it looks familiar," Miyako mused. "More like a feeling. Like an itch in my mind."

Daisuke tilted his nose into the air. "That's your conscience telling you not to snap at me and to give me nice presents."

He was ignored. Everyone's attention turned to Iori, who fumbled with his own D3, then walked around surveying the area. "I guess," he said doubtfully, "it could be the same place. No reason why it couldn't be at least."

"But don't you feel it? Like… just know it?"

Iori shrugged. Miyako's spirits sank for a moment, but she squared her shoulders and turned resolutely in the direction indicated by her D3. "We'll only know for sure if we keep going."

Not ten minutes later, their mystery solved itself when Miyako abruptly stopped again, this time at the foot of a broad set of stairs climbing high up a stone mound to the entrance of the temple. She glanced at her D3. The blinking red light pulsed steadily on the screen, like a glowing metronome.

"You were right," Hikari said, following Miyako as she ascended the stairs.

Ken raised a questioning eyebrow at Daisuke. "So this is where you found Hawkmon and Armadillomon?"

Shrugging, Daisuke clambered after the girls, swiftly overtaking them with his long strides. "I don't know. I wasn't actually here because Veemon –"

He cut himself off, but it was already too late. Miyako continued to climb, but sneaked glance at Ken coming up several steps behind her. His face, as usual, was unreadable. She wondered just how much unearthing long buried memories of his time as Emperor affected him these days.

The temple itself seemed as if it were barely able to keep from collapsing into itself. Although the four-year-old memory was hazy, Miyako was certain the temple hadn't been in such disarray back then. Stark red paint peeled off the tall wood columns, the floor was unswept, and as she approached the altar which had once held Iori's and her own Digi-Eggs, she saw that it was deeply cracked, as if it had been struck by a metal rod.

The others mounted the last of the steps after her and collapsed in the front hall. Miyako staggered the last few steps to the altar and bent over it with her hands splayed on its dented surface. Why had her D3 led her back to this place?

The bizarre little light on her screen started pulsating frantically, accompanied by a shrill whine. The wind picked up without warning, tossing Miyako's hair across her face and stinging her eyes. She felt someone's hand on her elbow – Iori's – lowering her to the ground, out of the worst of the gale.

Within seconds the gust dispersed, though its mournful howl continued to ring in their ears. Miyako and Iori exchanged a glance. Slowly he withdrew his arm from around her and raised his eyes to the ceiling.

"Miyako-san, look!" he gasped. "Up in the rafters!"

She followed his gaze to a small red-brown bundle cowering in a corner of the dilapidated ceiling. "Hawkmon," she breathed, striding towards him. She never doubted for a moment that it was him. Her partner.

The others watched uncertainly as Miyako climbed over the altar and picked her way through the dust-strewn hall. Once she was directly beneath Hawkmon, she tilted her head back and looked up at him. With his beak tucked snugly under his wing, Hawkmon seemed to be dozing, perched completely still by a hole in the roof where the strong wind had ripped off the tiles. Reaching up with her torso stretched, Miyako was just able to flick his tail feathers with her fingertips.

One blue eye pried itself open and rolled toward her. But instead of joyfully launching himself at her as she had anticipated, Hawkmon's whole feather-covered body stiffened. Miyako stumbled a little trying to reach higher. "Hawkmon, it's me," she said, troubled. "Don't tell me you've forgotten me already."

That induced a response. Hawkmon shook himself, ruffling his feathers into a puffy ball, and teetered on the beam while stretching his wings. Then he streaked downward and hovered over her head for a moment before alighting carefully on her shoulder.

"Ridiculous," he huffed, and his crisp, prim voice had never been more welcome to her ears. He leaned in to nuzzle her cheek with the downy softness that traversed the region from his upper beak to the tip of his crown. "I could never be so foolhardy."

Happiness swelled in Miyako's chest. She ran her fingers through Hawkmon's feathers, slow strokes, just as she knew he liked. He made a contented noise and plucked at her lip, a gesture she had come to recognize as his version of a kiss.

"I don't mean to interrupt your touching reunion," Daisuke called out, "but we've got some questions that need answering some time before we're all old and arthritic."

Miyako rolled her eyes. She heard Daisuke let ouf an "oof!" and assumed someone had elbowed him on her behalf. Chuckling, she began to make her way back to the group. Hawkmon's additional weight threw her slightly off balance. She couldn't remember him ever roosting on her shoulder before. Maybe he was trying to get used to how much she'd grown over the years.

"Good to see you again, Hawkmon," Hikari said as they drew near.

Hawkmon dipped his head. "Hello, Hikari-san. How are you?"

"I would be better if I knew where Gatomon is."

"We've never had to walk so far to find you guys before," Iori added. The stern trenches in his brow reminded Miyako of his grandfather. Someone who didn't know him well might think he was annoyed, but Miyako could see the worry pooling in his eyes.

Hawkmon's reply surprised them all.

"They're with Gennai," he asserted. "As was I until recently. It was determined that someone needed to meet you when you came through the portal, as Gennai is trying to keep all Gates closed as much as possible. This temple is considered a safe haven, although for how much longer it shall remain so I couldn't say. I was hardly impressed with the hospitality during my stay here. At any rate, that meant Armadillomon and I were the only candidates to await you, and as flying is rather more efficient than Armadillomon's practical, but regrettably slow, penchant for burrowing –"

"Where is Gennai?" Hikari cried, at the same time that Ken asked, "Why would you need a 'safe haven'?"

"I cannot possibly tell you that," Hawkmon calmly, looking at Hikari. "You must understand. I cannot tell you for the same reason that it is necessary to have a safe haven."

"It's that dangerous if someone knows where you are?" Daisuke asked.

Hawkmon swiveled his head around and buried his beak in his feathers. Miyako wondered if he really felt the urge to clean himself right then and there, or if he just needed a reason to stop and collect himself before answering. His talons dug straight through her shirt.

"I have no desire to frighten you with vague allusions that give no concrete details," Hawkmon said, resurfacing.

Miyako's lips curved wryly. _Teach that to Gennai, will you?_

"You should be aware that there is a threat to us. But I wasn't sent here to explain anything, only to act as Gennai's messenger. Because of the risk of interception, he did not wish to write to you. He requested that I pass this message to you, and you in turn shall relay it to the other Chosen Children. His words are simple: Stick close together. Don't come to Digiworld if you can help it. Keep an eye on those with Dark Spores."

"The Dark Spores?" Ken's pitch jumped an octave. "But they're defunct! What do they have to do with anything?"

"I'm sorry, I don't know anything more." Hawkmon sounded perturbed at being challenged. He shook himself out again and held himself a little straighter. "I am supposed to send you back home, now, and then return myself to Gennai."

Ken's fingers threaded their way through his hair. Unable to keep her voice from trembling, Miyako said, "Wait – you mean he really doesn't want us coming here anymore?"

"But in his last email, he said we should meet soon," Hikari protested weakly. "He has to explain what's happening to my brother!"

Hawkmon's bird-like features softened, turning sympathetic eyes on Hikari, who had gone pale. "Please trust me," he said gently. "Gennai knows what he's doing. Wait for his instructions. He will contact you when the time is right. In the meantime –"

He broke off. The disheartened Chosen huddled together, bracing themselves against the wind as it picked up fiercely once again. Miyako's insides froze as the hollow shriek reverberated through the wood-and-stone temple, before dwindling away to a faint echo.

"In the meantime," Hawkmon began again, "do as he says. Stick together and watch out for trouble in your own world. As soon as it's safe enough, he'll call for you."

There was nothing they could do but nod and agree. They exited the temple and slowly descended the stairs, Hawkmon trailing at the rear. He flew in circles above them as they headed back the way they came, occasionally swooping down and brushing Miyako with his tail feathers before returning to the sky.

"What's he doing?" Daisuke asked as Hawkmon took off again.

"He's keeping a look-out," Miyako said. "Isn't it obvious?"

"Good. Even if he won't tell us what's going on, at least he's making use of that bird's eye view," Daisuke grumbled, stalking ahead.

She almost snapped at him for that, but caught herself. Pain and concern was written across each of her friends' faces. At least she had been able to reunite with her partner. She had that much to be grateful for.

At the portal, Hawkmon dove down to graze Miyako's face one last time. She blinked back tears, running her fingers down his spine and willing herself not to panic. In the end they always returned to their home worlds. This wasn't good-bye.

"I'm going to be sick," she choked out. "I don't want to leave you."

"It will be all right," her partner reassured her. "As long as you keep a cool head."

She managed to laugh at that.

Reluctant to go home, the others stood a respectful distance away, gathered around the portal, which was disguised in its usual form of a television. Miyako swallowed around the lump in her throat and gave Hawkmon a farewell pat.

"Say 'hi' to Gennai for me. However many of him there are."

Hawkmon, who hated pats, threw her a disgruntled look. "Take care, Miyako-san," he said, zipping around her and darting off.

She was stunned by the abruptness of his departure. But she didn't know how much longer she would have delayed there if he'd left it up to her. Until her legs fell asleep and she no longer felt like she hadn't yet seen enough of him.

Hikari touched her elbow as she joined her friends.

"Homeward bound?" Daisuke asked, D3 at the ready.

Miyako nodded wordlessly.

* * *

** 07.31.2006**

** MON**

Takeru took his time climbing down the stairs, clutching to the rail until his knuckles turned white, and tested each step gingerly before shifting his weight. He could hear Nakata staggering along behind him, although he wouldn't risk a glance back when he would likely end up pitching forward. Three more of their mates, Kitamura Akashi, Sakamoto Shun, and Katou Kyouichi still hesitated at the top of the stairwell. Sakamoto was hunched over his knees.

"We shouldn't leave them there," Takeru said, more bravely than he felt. Just the thought of going anywhere but directly to bed was enough to make his stomach flip.

Nakata's reply was a derisive snort, accompanied by a groan. "You want to go back? Be my guest. But it'd be suicide."

"I won't die."

"No, but you definitely won't make it with your stomach intact."

Above them, someone – Sakamoto, probably – retched enormously on the floor. Takeru's hand flew to his mouth and, drawing on some untapped reserve of energy, bounded the last several steps in three strides. Once floor-level, Nakata's arms slid around his neck. He braced himself against the wall and half-dragged himself and Nakata to his dormitory.

Thankfully, the door was open. Takeru didn't feel up to scrounging for his key. He couldn't even remember where he'd stashed it.

"Your room mate's around?" Nakata asked, throwing himself on Takeru's bed.

Takeru took his trash can out from under his desk and brought it over to Nakata. "Dunno. Last I saw, he was still at Ogawa-senpai's…"

"But your door's open."

"I don't –" Takeru grimaced as the room resumed spinning. "Aah, stop making me think. I feel like I've been bashing my head into a wall all night."

"You lightweight," Nakata chuckled.

Takeru's only reply was to groan into his pillow. His face was warm from more than just the flush of alcohol. Of course he was a lightweight. This was his first time. Geez. Even Yamato didn't get flat out _wasted_ until he was sixteen.

As it turned out, the definition of a scintillating weekend at Aomori covered not only investigating as many dorm parties as possible, but also extending them well into Monday. Alcohol was, of course, strictly forbidden, but none of the aides on duty seemed too interested in preventing the campers from indulging. Aomori was a university during the school term, and the aides were all students. And it wasn't as if the entire campus was caught up in drunken chaos. Takeru knew there were boys who chose to stay out of the whole thing, and also those who knew how to drink socially and gauge their limits. He hadn't considered joining in all weekend, until now, when his own circle of friends impulsively decided to give it a try –

Takeru didn't know what the criteria for drunkenness entailed, but he was sure he was pretty far gone. Strangely he couldn't remember having more than a couple of shots.

"What am I going to tell my mom?" His voice struck him as plaintive. Whiny. Like a kid.

Nakata made no answer, rolling over on his side and treating Takeru to a whiff of his putrid breath.

"How much did I drink?"

"More than I did."

"You just said I'm a lightweight!"

"'Cause drunk people believe anything," Nakata admitted with a crooked grin. "I don't believe you've never had a drink before. You had enough to flood Takeshita Street."

"I don't want to hear that from you," Takeru groused. "You're no better off than I am."

He kept hearing his friends' voices in his head. What in the world do you think you are doing. Even your brother doesn't get this bad. That's a heck of a first time.

_Hikari-chan._

She just wouldn't find out. He could keep it a secret. If he had to tell someone, he'd talk to Yamato, who would keep his mouth shut in brotherly confidence (doing otherwise would make him a hypocrite, anyway). It amused him that, in spite of the gulf of differences between them which had widened in recent years, the one predilection he seemed to share with his brother was this. Because, sick as he felt now, he'd liked the buzz. He'd even liked being drunk, at first. Before that carefree sensation blew away, and lethargy set in. It had taken supreme effort just to force himself off the common room couch and limp to his own room.

"Takewooo."

Takeru batted at Nakata's hand, which was hovering close enough to make him cross-eyed. "Sh'up."

"You fell asleep," Nakata yawned. "For like twenty minutes."

"And you couldn't have just let me sleep, why?"

"First, 'cause I can't sleep, and second, 'cause your roommate's back and says I can't stay here."

"Listen, I'm tired of people who don't belong here barging in on me!" Takeru's roommate, Kakitani Yuichi, paced the room in an agitated huff. From day one, Yuichi had made it clear he was far more stringent than any of the aides, and even some of the staff. At curfew, lights were out. If Takeru so much as sneezed towards his side of the room, he'd disinfect the whole area. Takeru wouldn't be surprised if Yuichi reported his "low life" roommate for drinking alcohol, but right now that didn't seem to be what had Yuichi so uptight.

"Who else has barged in on you?" Takeru asked, propping himself up on his elbows. For a moment his vision clouded with splotches of darkness. He squeezed the bridge of his nose and waited for it to pass.

"One of your friends," Yuichi said moodily. "Some bottle-blond kid who said he knew you. Name was Sei-something. Seisuke, maybe."

"Seiki…?" Awareness slowly filtered back into Takeru's brain. "Hosoda Seiki-kun came by earlier?"

"Yeah. He stopped by and started rummaging around in here around ten-ish. At the time he said you told him it was okay."

"I didn't." Takeru and Nakata exchanged a wary glance. "Yuichi-kun, did… you ask him what he was doing?"

"Duh." Yuichi rolled his eyes. "He said he lent you his cell phone, and you forgot to return it. So he took it from your stuff."

"And you didn't stop him?" Takeru cried. "Yuichi-kun, how do you know he didn't take _my_ cell phone?"

"It's none of my business, is it?" Yuichi said testily. He shifted his attention back to Nakata. "But to avoid all that again – Nakata-kun. Out."

"Touché." Nakata crawled off Takeru's bed, gathering what few things he'd brought with him. Grumbling, Yuichi stalked off to the bathroom.

Ignoring them both, Takeru shot for his duffel bag and wrenched it open. The zipper snapped off and clattered at his feet. His hands dove through the disorganized mess of laundry and books until his fingers found the bottom. He turned the duffel over and let its contents spill out.

"Takeru, what's up?" Nakata was watching him with a funny smirk.

"Didn't you hear what he said?" Takeru brushed his iPod and Hikari's present aside. "Hosoda-kun may have stolen my cell phone."

"Then stop calling him 'Hosoda-kun.' Call him a jerk. Call him an asshole."

"You're not helping." Takeru froze as something shiny caught his eye._ There._ "It's still here." _But then, what did he take?_

"Oh, you found it? Good. 'Cause you were really going ballistic there for a second. I thought you would start to cry over a damn phone."

What if it wasn't a phone? Takeru's heart rate quickened, and he stretched his duffel wide. What if it was the right shape, the right color – but wasn't a phone?

_No no no._

"It's gone."

Nakata rolled his eyes. "No, it's not. You're holding it. But you're gonna break it if you don't let up."

"It's_ gone. _He took it."

And Nakata still wore that tolerant, slightly exasperated grin. "What's gone?"

Takeru peeled his eyes from all his personal effects scattered across the floor – all but one.

"My digivice."

* * *

** 08.01.2006**

** TUES**

**Anniversary **

The phone ringing shook Taichi out of his doze on the couch. He turned his head groggily away from the flickering light of the TV and groped for his cell on the coffee table. As he flipped it open, the ringing died and a message flashed across the screen:

**1 Missed Call from Izumi Koushirou at 12:06 A.M.**

He let a couple minutes pass, in case Koushirou was wasting time leaving him a voice-mail, in spite of knowing very well that Taichi only thought to check his mailbox when there was nothing, literally _nothing,_ else to do. Then he phoned him back.

"I don't know if I should be concerned or amazed that you aren't completely glued to the computer at this time of night," he yawned, stretching out on the couch.

"This is an emergency," Koushirou said sternly. "Takeru-kun's lost his D3."

"He _what?"_ Taichi bolted upright. He swiveled his head toward Hikari's room and lowered his voice. "How did he manage that?"

"It appears to have been stolen by a fellow camper, Hosoda Seiki, who has since disappeared from campus."

"Are you sure? He didn't just misplace it?"

"I don't know, Taichi-san." Koushirou sighed, sounding harassed. "But Takeru-kun's usually very responsible. And none of us have ever misplaced a Digivice before – not even for a few minutes."

Taichi had to concede that much. His own Digivice had become such a part of him that being without it felt like going out half-dressed.

"Who else have you called?" he asked, and eased himself off the couch to commence the hunt for his sneakers, which tended to show up in all sorts of unbelievable places. Like the bathtub, and even once, when he was much younger and had smaller feet, inside his father's shoes.

"You're the first, but we need to organize a search party of our own. Takeru-kun wanted to look, but I asked him to stay put. He probably won't be able to get past security, especially now that it's been increased during the search for Hosoda. With the help of our Digivices, we may have better luck finding him than the police. I was going to leave it up to you to decide who to call…"

"Get Yamato for certain. Let Sora sleep; she has to drive to the airport tomorrow. I guess I'll round up Daisuke and Hikari too. We can meet at the station and catch a late bus." Taichi frowned in thought. "… How's Takeru coping?" he asked quietly. Memories of an epic struggle between an angel and a demon pushed to the forefront of his thoughts.

"He's…" Koushirou paused uncertainly. "Taichi-san, I'm going to be honest about my observations, but understand that I don't know this for sure… he sounded like he might be drunk."

_Drunk? Our Takeru?_ Taichi shook his head in disbelief and groaned. "Perfect. You stick a bunch of adolescent boys in a room together and of course it turns into Happy Hour."

"Are you speaking from experience, or will you be looking into retirement homes prematurely, Oyaji?"

"Okay, I hear you," Taichi chuckled. He spotted his shoes staring at him from the _genkan –_ in the right place for once. "I'm just surprised at Takeru. Don't know if I can let him near my sister after this."

"Speaking of whom, he asked that we don't tell Hikari-san what's happened."

Taichi quirked an eyebrow. "He doesn't want to worry her," he guessed as he paused outside his sister's room, debating what to do. "Or he doesn't want her to see him drunk."

He hear Koushirou sigh again. "If that's the case, well, it's not exactly a noble notion, but I can see where he's coming from."

"Yeah," Taichi said, abashed. As quickly as it sparked, his annoyance seeped away. Why should he assume the worst about Takeru, whom he'd known for years, and who was already more mature than he himself had been at fourteen? "You're right. He's a good kid."

"Even good kids make mistakes."

"Hint-hint, nudge-nudge. I get it. I'm taking off the overprotective big brother gloves now. Geez, why do you have to be so smart?"

He could hear the smile in Koushirou's voice as he replied that it was just because he was an unbiased party. After scribbling a quick note for his parents, Taichi locked the door behind him and headed to Daisuke's apartment.

"So it's just gonna be us guys, then. We've got a drunk minor, a missing D3, and a thief we know nothing about –"

"That's not true, actually," Koushirou interrupted. "When I heard that name, Hosoda Seiki – it sounded familiar to me. So I looked through a bunch of old files until I found him. Hosoda Seiki, middle school third year, tall, hazel eyes, brown hair – although Takeru-kun tells me he's bleached it – blood type A, plays for Odaiba Jr. High boys' volleyball."

"… Volleyball? But he's at a basketball camp?"

"I thought that was suspicious too. He might have gone there for the sole sake of stalking Takeru-kun."

"Why would he –"

"The location of his record is also interesting. He's listed among the children who were rescued from Oikawa's van in late December, 2002.

"Taichi-san, Hosoda has a Dark Spore."

* * *

Taichi had forgotten how _dark_ it got when the sun was on the wrong side of the Earth. Although nights in Odaiba were well-illuminated by streetlights, neon restaurant signs and the iridescent arch of the Rainbow Bridge, the parts of town he didn't know particularly well seemed skewed and disorienting.

Luckily, he had Ken, whose directional intuition earned him the role of human GPS. And _Ken_ didn't even live in this town (although somehow he always managed to be wherever Daisuke was, like a satellite caught in orbit).

He hoped Sora at least was making good use of what night was actually for – sleeping. The intolerable heat sapped the strength right out of him, even though he'd been about as active as his cat today. Actually, even Miko worked harder than him, if it was true that a cat's heart beats well over 100 times per minute.

"Ten bucks says Sora's gonna be pissed I didn't call her," Taichi groaned as he and Daisuke flanked Ken towards the bus station.

"Think she'll be a tight-ass because you let her sleep?" Daisuke asked, glancing back. The back of his shirt was damp with sweat from the heat, relentless even at night.

"Nah… I dunno. I just think I should've called her, but oh well. Anyway, watch that you never call her 'tight-ass' to her face."

"Well, she didn't have to snap at me so much on the way to the campsite."

"You were kind of provoking her." Poking a well-aimed elbow into Daisuke's side, Taichi quickened his pace to match Ken's. Daisuke made an indignant noise and rushed to catch up so he could pout where people would notice him.

Taichi was impressed that Daisuke and Ken were up for a hunt when they'd been so exhausted from Sunday's hike through the Digital World (although, compared to other dive-ins, this one had been leisurely). But they'd slept through most of Monday, finally getting up at three p.m., and spent the rest playing video games. They didn't have any plans of going to bed before dawn today either.

Ken leaned to inspect the bus schedule. "This is the bus that will take us closest to Aomori, but it's still going to drop us off a good way downtown. Besides that, I doubt we'll even be allowed on campus to talk to Takeru-kun…"

"Don't worry, we have a plan," said a new voice, Koushirou's, as he appeared among them. Yamato came up beside him as if on a leash, sullen and brooding.

"We're going to split up," Koushirou went on once everyone had circled up. "Some of us will go to Aomori and try to track down Hosoda there. The others will head to Nerima."

"To Nerima?" Taichi echoed. "You mean to Shiroike Campgrounds? That's pretty far from Aomori – isn't Aomori in Shinagawa-ku?"

Koushirou nodded. "Yeah, we'll have to change buses. It's true that it would take Hosoda a while to get to Shiroike, if his intent is to go there. But Takeru-kun says his D3 could have been stolen any time since dinner, which ended at seven. His guess is that it was probably stolen around ten, when his roommate reports Hosoda coming by to pick up his borrowed 'cell phone.' Allowing room for sneaking off campus and finding a way into town, he's still got a few hours on us."

"But why Shiroike?" Taichi asked.

"I've got a theory," Koushirou said, a familiar gleam in his eye. Taichi knew that look far too well. Now Koushirou was about to embark on a lengthy explanation which would not only fly above Taichi's head, but turn somersaults in the air above him before zipping into the stratosphere.

"It's based primarily on conjecture, and a lot of little facts we've discovered only recently, but that's all the information we really have. Gennai's already informed us that things aren't going the way they're supposed to in Digiworld. The Gates have been behaving erratically, which counts in part for why Taichi-san started experiencing his… digitization… so out of the blue," he added with an apologetic note.

Taichi only gestured for him to go on, determined to be chill. Nothing else had happened since that one instance on Wednesday. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't disturbed, but there was no reason to let it shadow his summer break. Besides, Gennai had a propensity to exaggerate.

But then he noticed Daisuke wavering at his side, and shifting to look at him, saw him ball his fists and a muscle jerk in his jaw. His eyes were narrowed and the expression on his face, directed at Koushirou, was similar to how he looked when he was fired up for a soccer match against a particularly annoying opposing team. The brash look didn't do much for his features, but at the same time somehow suited him.

Was this in _his_ defense? The thought almost made him laugh. Taichi considered himself on level with Daisuke most days, though a three year age gap still sometimes made a difference. But amusing as it was, he didn't need his _kouhai_ to protect him from bad thoughts.

With a large pitcher's swing, he slung his arm around Daisuke's shoulder and used the other to thump his chest. "What else is there to it, Koushirou?" he asked, grinning broadly. "Maybe I'm just thick, but I still don't see why you want us to go to Shiroike as well."

"Well, I hadn't even thought of this until I realized Hosoda was one of the children who received a Dark Spore from Oikawa," Koushirou said after a thoughtful pause. "Even then I might not have put much weight on that without the news Daisuke-kun and the others brought from Hawkmon the other day. We were actually advised – or more accurately, instructed to keep a close watch on everyone who was implanted with a Spore. It struck me that this can't be coincidence. So I thought, what would Hosoda plan to do with a stolen D3?

"Remember how all those kids received D3s and Digimon partners? And after returning to our world, were unable to reenter Digiworld or communicate with their partners at all? Naturally, they would want to return to Digiworld no matter what. So I hypothesized that Hosoda intends to use Takeru-kun's D3 to open the Gate."

"Would that work?" Yamato asked. Everyone turned to look at him. He'd been so silent that Taichi had forgotten he was there.

"I would say no. The digivice acts not only as a key to Digiworld, but also fetters us to our partners. I couldn't use Taichi-san's digivice to evolve Tentomon any more than he could use mine for a Jogress evolution with Yamato-san. If that won't work, possibly it won't allow the wrong user access to Digiworld either."

A pensive frown tugged at Ken's lips. "It… could," he said. "My brother was able to use my digivice to enter Digiworld. But I was with him at the time, even if I wasn't holding it myself. I don't know if he ever tried to dive in when I wasn't there…"

"So there's at least a chance that Hosoda could be wandering Digiworld even now," Taichi said grimly.

"That sucks! He can't abuse our right to Digiworld like that!" Daisuke cried. "I'm gonna introduce him to my mean left hook as soon as I get a glimpse of his sorry mug."

"It's interesting that you use the word 'right', Daisuke-kun," Koushirou continued as if he were calmly discussing Newton's laws with his physics teacher. "Although by now we all feel entitled to visiting our friends in the Digital World, the fact of the matter is the world doesn't always allow us entrance, whether we have a model 1 digivice or a D3. Diving is more of a privilege than a right. Perhaps Hosoda doesn't have that privilege, and won't be allowed in."

"But you think he'll try, at least?" asked Yamato.

"Yes, and I think he'll make his attempt at Shiroike."

"Why?"

"Because that's the only place those kids know for sure has a permanent Gate. Oikawa brought them to the Wishing World through use of the Dark Spores, but couldn't open Digiworld from there – he needed a power source proportional to MaloMyotismon's. None of the Spore children entered Digiworld from Earth, with the exception of one."

Taichi's eyes widened. "The girl Oikawa left behind – Kawada Noriko!"

Koushirou nodded. "I spoke with Noriko-san on the phone after talking with Taichi-san. She is currently a second year at an all-girl's middle school. She's kept in touch with the other Spore children, it seems, and told me rather reluctantly that she had shared with them her experience entering Digiworld through the Gate at Shiroike camp four years ago."

"I see, so if Hosoda wanted to open a Gate, the place he'd think to go is Shiroike," Taichi said. "But – I don't get why he'd stalk Takeru to basketball camp just to steal his D3. Don't you have to sign up for those things weeks in advance? Do they even know each other?"

Koushirou shook his head, spreading his hands. "I don't know why he did it. This is the best theory I can offer, I'm sorry."

"No, it's a good theory," Taichi assured him hastily. "We can't expect to know everything. But you've given us a lot to go on."

"Shouldn't we get started?" Yamato said with a note of impatience. He brushed his bangs out of his face and looked at the digital clock mounted on the wall. "It's already almost one."

"Right, we need to split up."

"I'm going where Takeru is," Yamato declared.

"No, you're not," Koushirou said. At Yamato's look of rebellion, he elaborated: "Someone older has to go with Daisuke-kun and Ken-kun to Shiroike. Taichi-san can't, because he's not supposed to –"

"– be near any Digital Gates, I know," Taichi grumbled.

Daisuke crossed his arms, looking annoyed. "Taichi-senpai could come with us. We just wouldn't let him past the cabins."

"Are we talking about the same person? Do you really think Taichi-san would obediently stay out of the way if there's trouble?"

"I'm standing right here, you know."

"Fine, so Taichi and I go to Aomori, you go with the kids to Shiroike, what's the problem?" Yamato demanded.

"The problem is I have to go to Aomori," Koushirou said. "I'm small enough to pass for a junior high student." In fact, Daisuke, Ken and Takeru had all far exceeded him in height. "Aside from that, you're a rock star, Yamato-san. Even if you aren't making the Oricon chart, locally you're a well-known face. If you show up at Aomori, it will only cause a fuss, and possibly let on to Hosoda or any confederates he might have that we're coming after them."

"The fact that I'm _Takeru's brother_ could get us inside quicker," Yamato countered tersely.

"Not unless you're his authorized guardian and have clearance to pick him up. They're not taking any chances."

Yamato swiveled on his heel and stalked towards the ticket machine. The others traded uneasy looks and followed him.

The first bus arrived promptly on the hour, driven by a balding middle-aged man who blinked at Taichi and Koushirou through smeared glasses as they boarded. Daisuke and Ken waved at them through the windows. Yamato continued to mope until the bus started to pull out. Then he rapped on the glass of Taichi's window and pressed his hand to the glass. Taichi grinned and pretended to swipe a high-five.

"We'll look after Takeru," he promised.

A half-moon smile tugged at Yamato's lips. The bus picked up speed down the sleepy street, and they lost sight of each other.

* * *

Sitting in the gymnasium with his arms curled around his legs, Takeru flipped his cell phone open and closed, open and closed. The air was thick with body heat and the din of rowdy, pajama-clad teenagers. He was a member of Group F, one of the two ninth grade clusters. Once news of Hosoda Seiki's disappearance reached the camp coordinator, all the campers were ushered into the gym and separated into their groups for a head count. They'd been there for two hours already while the school and grounds were searched. Every now and then a counselor came in, wearing a frustrated scowl that made Takeru's heart sink. Not long ago he'd heard them call the town police department.

His rear was sore from the hardwood floor and he had kinks in his knees and shoulders. Plus he had the headache to end all headaches. Which he knew was his own fault, but he still felt like grumbling.

Huddled nearby were his friends, Nakata and Kitamura and the rest. Katou was trying to sleep with his forehead pressed against the wall. Sakamoto sprawled haphazardly on the ground, faking heat stroke. Igarashi Makoto produced a deck of cards from nowhere and asked Takeru if he wanted to play.

He didn't want to do anything. He just wanted his D3 found.

The supervisor's assistant, Waku, raised his arm, calling all the group leaders to him. Takeru lifted his head and strained to catch their words. A few minutes later, Group F's leader hurried back and told the boys to stand up.

"We're going back to bed at last," he said, rolling his shoulders.

Everyone but Takeru let out a cheer. He watched miserably as Group G filed out before them and passed a security guard marking the front door. Lamp posts and dash lights bathed the campus grounds. Two coaches and the camp coordinator conversed with a pair of officers under an elm tree.

"I wonder if they'll find him," Nakata whispered in Takeru's ear. "What was the point in running away?"

Takeru nodded mutely. He forced a small smile as they separated in the dormitory hall. Yuichi beat him to their room and lunged at his bed. His eyes flickered around nervously as lights and voices from outside filtered through their first floor window.

Takeru knelt by his duffel bag. Maybe, just maybe… Turning it clean inside-out, he rummaged through his belongings for what had to be the hundredth time. There were his trading cards. The laces he'd broken on the first day. His notebook, his mp3 player and earpods.

But no D3.

Well, it wasn't like he had honestly expected to find it. With a sigh, he started replacing each item into the bag. Then he heard his cell phone vibrating against the surface of his desk.

He snatched it up. One message waited for him, a text from his brother:

**On my way to the camp. Taichi and Koushirou coming to you.**

** Don't worry. We'll find it.**

**Niisan**

Camp? Why were they heading to the… oh.

The vortex.

What else would Seiki want a D3 for?

He wobbled on the balls of his feet, caught in an internal debate. But his resolve was already set. Nobody, nobody but him could use that D3. It was the only link between him and Patamon. It was his responsibility to keep it safe – and he had failed. But he would get it back.

If Seiki could sneak off campus unnoticed, then so could he. Even if the campus was crawling with police. Takeru grabbed his wallet and tied his sneakers. Locking the door behind him, he crept down the hall as quietly as he could manage before coming to a side door.

He couldn't believe his luck. It was unguarded.

But the officer who was supposed to be stationed there had just stepped out of the bathroom. Thinking quietly, Takeru darted outside and flung himself into the shrubs which lined the entire residence hall. Oblivious, the officer halted at the entrance and stared down the hall.

Takeru pressed his body against the building and shimmied between it and the shrubs, for once grateful that he was so skinny. The muffled rustling noise he made as he crawled went unheard beneath the competing clamor of voices. At the other end of the building he would be right across the street from freedom. No one would take him for more than a pedestrian returning late from a bar.

"Hey, kid!"

Takeru froze mere inches from the road. An officer stood several feet behind him, whistle poised at his lips. "I don't know how you got out," he said as he approached, "but come back without giving me any trouble and there won't be any for you."

Takeru only took a second to decide. He split.

He made it to the opposite strip of sidewalk by the time the officer blew his whistle. The shrill sound sent a bolt of pain through his head, but his long legs took him quickly into the darkness. He was younger and more athletic; he could outrun them. His heart beat wildly at the thought that he was breaking the law. Or at least camp rules. Wow. His mother would ground him so long, he'd forget what his own face looked like.

Then again, since he'd readily carve out his liver in return for that one little device, he figured he could take whatever punishment was in store for him.

* * *

**Chapter Notes:**

1.] _Takeshita Street:_ Popular shopping area in Harajuku, Shibuya.

2.] _Oyaji:_ Rudish way to refer to your father. I've seen it equated to "my old man." I'm sure Koushirou would never use that term to describe his father, but since he's only teasing Taichi… ;)

3.]_ Shinagawa-ku:_ A ward in Tokyo in which I've located Aomori. I have no idea if buses run this late or if you can get to Shinagawa-ku by bus. In our make-believe Odaiba, though, we can.

4.] _Kawada Noriko:_ The same Noriko Takeru and Iori stalked in season two – the girl with the face mask, and out of whose head Oikawa made a flower blossom, if that helps. Huzzah for the return of forgettable minor characters.

5.] _Oricon chart:_ Oricon, Inc., which publishes statistics on the sales of music, etc. in their magazine and on their website.

_Be kind to Takeru, and to Sora... we'll see a little more of them next chapter! (I thought I'd bring in Mimi in this one, but sadly she'll have to wait.) In the meantime, reviews are like like four-leaf clovers and if you pick them, you may receive the good luck of another chapter..._


	5. In Which Much Waiting Occurs

_A/N: Welcome back! Chapter 5 is finally finished, thanks to all your kind encouragement. I am giving myself several belated pats on the back. Belated is better than never. But I couldn't have done it without you guys! I am a slug. This is but the hard truth. You know what happens to a slug if you pour salt on it? Yeeeeah. But you guys are smart. You covered me with sugary sweet reviews and sugar is what gives slugs the kick they need to press on through danger and a sea of papers and exams! (Actually I don't have the faintest idea what sugar does to slugs but it's hardly relevant, I am me after all.)_

_Special thanks to BenignUser for generally being fantastic over the course of writing this last chapter, and also to the members of Digi-Challenge who have offered some very nice encouragement. Through your reviews I was also introduced to some spiffing fellow writers and I have enjoyed stalking your stuff!_

_Now, let's begin! Minor characters in this chapter: Nakata Shigeo and Kakitani Yuichi, Takeru's friend and roommate from basketball camp._

* * *

**Chapter Five**

**In Which Much Waiting Occurs and Nothing Really Gets Done**

"_Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."  
- Thomas Edison_

** 08.01.2006**

** TUES**

** Anniversary **

Koushirou hoped that Taichi would fall asleep, as he often did on long rides, until they reached Shinagawa so that Koushirou had time to sort out his own muddled theories. But they were barely out of Odaiba before he felt Taichi watching him, a brood of questions set to leap from his lips. Koushirou knew he was fighting them. He was deciding whether or not his doubts would stick a pin in Koushirou's delicate ego. And even though the thought prickled and tugged at a corner of Koushirou's mouth, he couldn't say Taichi's caution was unjustified.

The growth of their friendship had almost been clipped short as a sapling, back when Taichi's insensitivity outweighed his affection, and it was simply hard sometimes to remember that his mouth ran too fast for his thoughts to keep up. To be fair, Koushirou was, at that time, hypersensitive to criticism from most anyone. And he'd been so jealous of Taichi. Well, perhaps jealous wasn't the right word. He'd admired and envied his confidence, his easy way with people. Equally, there were things about Taichi he'd resented, which had only widened the rift between them.

But they'd surpassed those early years. Sure, half the time Koushirou still wanted to throttle Taichi, or needed to lie down after hanging with him because his head was all in a whirl and four hours of running commentary on _Family Guy_ was clearly not conducive to rational thought. But they'd both become more patient with each other, more understanding of their differences. And Koushirou liked to think they'd even learned a bit from each other.

Even so, at times like this, envy came surging back. Koushirou had come far since childhood, even since middle school, when he'd felt the need to apologize for every theory gone wrong. But what he wouldn't give for Taichi's self-assured smile, the defiant blaze in his eyes which made him friends out of strangers and rivals out of enemies.

He steeled himself as Taichi clenched his jaw in that way of his that meant he wanted to be Very Serious.

"Koushirou, I know you've got your reasons, but I'm curious why you want to pass yourself off as an Aomori camper. I mean, I assume there's a plan involved?"

Koushirou could have laughed. Those words had been rolled over and over in Taichi's head so much that they came out sounding regurgitated, as if he were spitting verbal cud. Taichi was not a pig (in most respects, on good days, and it was easier to just not think about bad days). Some imposter who was polite and straight-laced had commandeered his mouth and made him talk like a pig. If just Taichi were speaking, he'd have said something more along the lines of, "Koushirou, what the juicy frick is with that plan?"

"I figured it was worth it to make the attempt," Koushirou replied, matching the closely monitored neutrality in Taichi's voice. "Aomori accepts high school athletes, but it would be best for us to mingle with Hosoda's own group mates and learn what we can from them."

"They'll all be asleep by now, won't they?" Taichi asked.

"With all the excitement, I'm sure we can find someone willing to talk – and if not, it's still worth the effort to go there and comfort Takeru, then try to track Hosoda's path, in case I'm wrong about his heading to Shiroike." Keeping his voice level, he added, "I actually _don't_ think you and Yamato-san could have pulled any of this off on your own, and that's why I sent him to Shiroike."

Taichi's mouth tipped. "Oh, I see how it is. So you don't trust us with the brain work. I can't say I blame you. But I _still_ don't get how you plan to get past Aomori security."

Koushirou grinned. "Just Taichi" was back. "That's where this comes in," he said, and pulled out his wallet. "Take a look."

"Your school ID?" Taichi squinted in the dim lighting and sucked in his breath. "Is this _forged?"_

"I made some modifications to my old junior high ID. It wasn't hard to substitute the dates of attendance."

Clearly impressed, Taichi flipped the ID over on his palm. "I guess you didn't need to take a new picture, since you look more or less the same –"

"I don't look exactly the same," Koushirou hissed, snatching the ID from Taichi's fingers. Scowling, he slid it carefully back into his wallet. He turned his glare on his reflection in the window and wondered if it was time for that hair cut.

"Anyway, I don't expect I'll have a reason to use it. The plan is to sneak in; I'll only whip it out if I get stopped by security. But we're banking on the staff having too many kids to keep track of to notice that they haven't seen me before. If they figure out I'm not supposed to be there, I don't know what will happen. They probably just won't let me stay, but I guess they might also turn me over to the police."

"And what am I supposed to do while you're inside?"

"Look pretty and distract the guards."

"That might take some acting."

"Okay, then you can sweep the grounds, see if you can find footprints or anything."

"Like the police are doing? What if I get arrested for trespassing?"

"That's why I told you to look pretty –"

Taichi slapped his forehead. His knees shot skyward as the rest of him slouched low in his seat. "I think I've been a bad influence on you," he pouted.

Shaking his head, Koushirou tugged on the collar of Taichi's shirt. "No, you don't get to take credit for my wit. That was all me."

"Yeah, it was." Taichi pulled his legs up and smiled over his knees. He blinked sleepily out the window. "It was all you."

They rode in silence after that. Eventually Taichi fell asleep, leaning in on a margin of Koushirou's space until he had to scrunch uncomfortably against the wall. He wished he'd thought ahead and let Taichi take the window seat. There was a reason he tried to avoid sitting next to Taichi on long trips: whoever got stuck next to him would end up as his pillow, willing or unwilling.

The bus sped past a sea of dark trees and Koushirou wondered if his parents were still asleep. He'd left a note for them, and his cell phone was charged and tucked safely in his shirt pocket. But some pathetically hopeful part of him still entertained the notion that he'd get home before they knew he'd gone. He didn't want them to worry. And he was sure he'd be too tired to field their questions when he returned.

By the time they reached the outskirts of Shinagawa, Koushirou felt something heavy dragging his eyelids downward, and the electric glow of his computer screen seemed to burn. He reluctantly put it away and closed his eyes. He ached all over. The rumble of street noises did nothing to help. He felt like he were sitting in the pit of an extravagantly out-of-tune orchestra that featured garbage cans in place of timpanis. And something wouldn't stop _beeping…_ a stopwatch or alarm… just wouldn't _stop…_

"Koushirou, wake up!"

He was being shaken. Through a sleepy haze he saw Taichi's anxious frown, and when his head had stopped rattling he forced himself to sit up. He pushed away from the window, wincing at a knot in his neck. "What?"

"A digivice's signal." Taichi was intently chewing on his lower lip and staring at his own digivice. "This dot showed up and started beeping. You didn't hear it?"

"I heard, but didn't recognize it," Koushirou said, unlatching his digivice from his belt. "Mine's got the same signal… You know, you're a real mother hen when it comes to these things."

Taichi stared at him blankly. "What?"

"You know how mothers, even when they're fast asleep, are tuned to their baby's cries? You're like that with your digivice… and anything to do with Digiworld."

"I guess," Taichi mumbled with a slight shrug. "We need to track the signal. It could be Hosoda."

"Who else could it be?" Koushirou sighed, frustrated with their lack of information. "We might as well get off here."

"No. Just I'll go. You continue to Aomori in case I lose him. Someone needs to talk to Takeru, anyway."

"But –" Koushirou furrowed his brow at the thought of Taichi wandering an unfamiliar town by himself.

"I'll be fine. We're already in the university town, so we'll be close to each other. And I can't get any more lost here than I did in Digiworld."

"You realize that's not exactly comforting."

"One of us has to go." Already squeezing down the aisle, Taichi threw a grin over his shoulder. "And you can't trust me with the mission that requires brain work."

He sweet-talked the driver into dropping him off at the curb. No sooner had he hopped off the bus than he took off down the street, focused on the uncanny device in his hand.

Koushirou had hoped he would wave. He felt his enthusiasm seep out of him, spilling through his feet. Gennai's injunctions came unbidden to his mind, almost like a reproof: _Stick close together. Don't come to Digiworld if you can help it. Keep an eye on those with Dark Spores._

He wondered if they'd break all three in one night.

* * *

"This is a waste of time." Daisuke dragged an arm along his sweaty brow. That was it; he was done with this heat wave. Exhaustion plus sticky summer nights made him cranky and a little nauseous. "Who knows if that kid with Takeru's D3 will even come here? And if he does, it's dark enough that we could completely miss him. Maybe we'll end up sitting here until morning, unless we get mugged by gangsters first…"

"There are no gangsters out here, Daisuke," Ken said patiently, as if Daisuke had said he was worried about bears. He pulled a hair elastic off his wrist and swept his blue-black mane into a loose ponytail.

Poking at the ash in the fire pit with a long stick, Daisuke wondered if he'd be able to scare Ken before the night was out. So far his best friend hadn't been impressed by even one of his ghost stories. Not even the one that was a rip-off of _Saw._ Then again, Ken had gone with him to see _Saw,_ and then he'd stood outside the stall while Daisuke vomited popcorn and Milk Duds into the toilet, so he probably knew what was going to happen.

"Aardvark," Daisuke said.

Ken rolled his eyes. "Beluga whale."

"Cat."

"Dromedary."

"Iguana."

"… Begins with 'I'," Ken corrected, burying his face in his hands. "Daisuke, do you do that on purpose just to age me prematurely?"

"Maybe," Daisuke said, proud of himself. It was important to keep Ken on his toes, else he'd fall into that endless void which was his Thoughts and it was a _pain in the arse_ to pull him back out. "I just like to say 'iguana.' It's fun, kind of like Gila monster – or dromedary."

He heard nothing from Ken, but in the glow of his flashlight, could see his shoulders shake with silent laughter.

The snap of twigs made his head swivel to the right, at Yamato prowling around the campgrounds like some beast from the forest. A lanky, two-legged beast with tobacco breath. As he watched, Yamato planted his foot on a decaying tree branch and leaned his full weight on it until it broke in half.

"Is he trying to collect firewood?" Daisuke whispered to Ken.

"Just leave him alone," Ken replied. "He's got a lot on his mind right now." He shifted on their log bench, brushing a few twigs off the seat of his pants.

Daisuke kept a watch on Yamato out of the corner of his eye. He was slightly afraid that all Yamato's pent up rage would finally burst out and piss on the two unsuspecting middle schoolers sharing a log. The senior Chosen had spent the entire bus ride fuming until his ears turned crimson, and refused to talk to them while they climbed the winding trail to the campsite. Daisuke wanted to say something to remind him that they were all a team, and age didn't matter. If there was something Yamato was concerned about, it would be better to share it with them, rather than skulk around like a caged animal.

He realized he hadn't actually seen Yamato for more than a few minutes since Christmas. No – since Takeru's birthday. At least he'd bothered to show up for his brother's birthday. On Koushirou's he'd called from his tour. On Sora's he'd done nothing.

"… Hey," Daisuke said after a minute. "If that kid doesn't want to try to open a Gate, what d'you think he wants to use Takeru's D3 for?"

Ken leaned back and looked at his shoes. "I don't know what would be most likely. Maybe he wants to take it apart and compare it to his own D3, find out why it doesn't work properly. Maybe it's revenge – he hates the idea of someone else having something he can't. Or maybe he's being paid by someone to steal it and bring it to them. The possibilities are endless. We don't have any data."

Daisuke's mouth slipped open at the thought of some kid picking apart a D3. It wasn't that he hadn't thought about how Takeru must be feeling. He just hadn't entertained the idea that they wouldn't recover the D3 no problemo, and tease Takeru about the whole thing afterward. For the first time he allowed himself to be swept with sympathy.

"We definitely have to get it back," he murmured, thrusting his stick further into the ash. A cloud of dust rose from the fire pit and he coughed.

He felt Ken watching him, considering him. He pretended not to notice.

"How do you feel about what's happening to Taichi-san?" Ken asked.

Daisuke grimaced, giving his full attention to his alien messages in the dirt. "What does it matter how I feel?" he said with a casual shrug. "It's Taichi-san's problem."

"It's not just a problem, Daisuke. It's… practically a death sentence." Ken's voice was low, gentle, but Daisuke felt like he'd been kicked. _Casual,_ he reminded himself. _Blue jeans and ringer shirt casual._

He couldn't think of anything to say at first. A clump of something settled in his throat. He fought to swallow around it while vigorously working the ashes with his stick.

"We faced death lots of times and found a way out of it," he protested when he managed to unstick his tongue. Maybe that didn't sound as whiny and defensive to Ken as it did to him.

"That's a very noncommittal response." Ken tentatively put a hand on his shoulder. "Besides, this is different than anything that's happened to us before. I'm scared for him. And knowing how important Taichi-san is to you… I want you to know you can talk to me."

Teeth clenched, Daisuke dipped his head a couple times, up and down like a bobblehead doll. He was too conscious of Ken's arm around his shoulders, a firm grip that was meant to offer comfort, but he wanted it removed. The part of him that was already a tangle of nerves felt even more exposed, and though he was grateful for Ken's support, he wished he hadn't picked _now_ to talk about this.

"Even so –" He blinked rapidly. "Even so – if Taichi-san's not worried about it –"

"He's worried." Daisuke almost jumped at the hard voice growling in his ear. Yamato towered over him, his fair hair framed in a halo of moonlight. The expression on his face was anything but angelic. "He's not just worried, he's terrified. Just good at hiding it."

Daisuke balled his fists as his frayed nerves sparked. "Stop acting like you know so much," he retorted hotly. "You're never even around anymore. Why should I believe you more than anyone else? More than Taichi-san?"

Yamato's eyes flashed dangerously, but he didn't say a word, even to scoff at Daisuke. He took a long drag of his cigarette. He made as if to walk off, _back to trampling as much of the grounds as he can,_ Daisuke thought with a snort. But then he turned back around, and Daisuke thought he was holding himself funny, maybe a little stiffly. He squirmed.

"Why am I the only one who doesn't think of Digiworld as our secret dream land? Why am I the only one who sees how _detrimental_ it can be?" Surrounded by a chorus of chirping grasshoppers, Yamato's anger seemed out of place, a ripple in a still pond. "It's not a fricking utopia."

Daisuke started to stand. Ken caught his arm, shooting him a warning look, and levered himself off the ground. He stared coolly at Yamato. "You don't mean any of that," he said with a stoicism Daisuke envied.

Of course, Ken was also able to speak with the authority of one who had been through several Digiworld-related tragedies. Yamato practically shrank in front of a middle schooler. Under any other circumstances, Daisuke would have doubled over laughing. Without a word, Yamato stalked out of sight, leaving behind a trail of smoke in his wake.

Ken sat back down with folded his hands. He stared placidly at nothing discernable. Daisuke joined him. "You all right?" he asked after a few moments had elapsed.

"Fine," Ken replied crisply. "I wish we could build a fire."

"… It would just make us even hotter," Daisuke said, and let the topic drop. Ken's tone was not welcoming. He picked up his stick and scratched his name in the ash. And tried not to think about blond bastards with the temper of a billy goat.

* * *

Takeru picked and tripped his way down an alley, his arms stretched out and flailing like a pair of antennae. He wasn't sure how far he'd managed to run from Aomori, or how many policemen would be on his scent. He imagined the entire force was out looking for him with body gear and tasers and tracking dogs.

The sidewalks were alive in the neon glow of the city's nightlife, so he kept to the alleys. His head pounded like he'd tried sparring with a narwhal. His tongue was dry. It was tempting to duck into a convenience store or hit up a vending machine, but he couldn't risk being seen on the main road.

_Dammit, I'm not a convict._ Takeru took a couple steadying breaths, but his treacherous heart continued to racket around his rib cage.

In spite of the late hour, the streets were far from deserted. Somehow the impromptu route he'd chosen had led him straight into the Red Light district. Drawing on every trick he'd learned as a city kid in Sangenjaya, Takeru did his best to keep silent and invisible. If someone came down one of the back roads he was following, he lifted his head and stared straight forward, but avoided meeting their eyes. Rule number one was never to look vulnerable or suspicious. Luckily, he was a 5'8", broad-shouldered athlete who looked older than his fourteen years. He kept to himself and an impassable protective circle materialized around him.

Shuffling around the dumpster behind a small Indian restaurant, Takeru's hand caught on a rusty nail, opening a gash in his palm. He hissed and crouched to inspect it. The wound oozed red and ragged. How long would it take for it to become infected?

_So much for getting out of this unscathed._ Once again he vowed never to allow himself another drink. Or even in the proximity of other people with alcohol. No more _nomikai_ for him, not if it led to stupid decisions like this.

What had he been thinking, running away from Aomori?

As his head cleared, he started to wonder how long it would take before the police were searching for him instead of Hosoda. He could have compromised their success in obtaining his D3. And they'd call his mom. Crap, they would call his mom.

To think he'd believed himself ready to sacrifice his _liver_ just to get his D3 back.

Gingerly cradling his injured hand, Takeru paused at the gate of a park. Except for the glare of the street lamps, the park was enveloped in night. If he crossed it, he'd end up in a different part of town. He threw a leg over the fence and hopped down.

_Maybe it would be better just to call someone, tell them where I am._ He took a few uncertain steps and prayed for the moon to gleam through the clouds. _At this point I've probably gotten myself too lost to find a bathroom, let alone Hosoda Seiki._

_ I could call Hikari-chan. Taichi-san can drive. He'll make fun of me for getting hurt and harass me until I'm old and arthritic, but he'll come to pick me up._

Somewhat guiltily, he realized he didn't want Yamato to find out about this little escapade. Ever.

_But if I quit now, and Hosoda's not at the camp like the others think…_

He thought constantly of Patamon.

Just at the moment that his confidence was wavering, he heard the crunch of leaves and twigs to his left. The park patrol? No, probably a deer. They'd been unusually brazen this summer, or so he'd heard.

His deer was considerably noisy. And clumsy. _Snap – bump._ "Ow! Dammit."

Well, either Noisy and Clumsy was a person or Rudolph was extremely confused about the time of year. Person, then. Takeru chanced a look over his shoulder. In the darkness all he could hear were lumbering footsteps, and a distant, yet familiar, beeping.

The blinking red light he could now tell was pulsing with each beep confirmed what he'd already guessed. Someone was approaching who had a digivice.

Takeru braced himself and waited. Meanwhile he tried not to think about how supremely he failed at fist fights. Mostly because it took him longer than most people to get mad. Once he was good and fired up, he popped his claws, but he still lacked experience. Tussling with Daisuke on his living room floor hardly counted as a brawl, especially since they mostly roared at each other and occasionally took a badly-aimed swipe. Oh well. Maybe rage would feed his amateur fists and his subconscious would recall moves from all those Bruce Lee movies Daisuke loved so much.

When the intruder came within spitting distance, Takeru sprang up on his long legs and launched himself forward. He scratched and groped at a torso which was uncommonly bendy, writhing away every time he thought he had him pinned. They tumbled over a bed of twigs and leaves. Takeru's shoes filled with dirt and a pebble caught between his toes. He made a mad grab for the flashing red light in the other's hand and latched onto a fistful of bushy hair.

He froze.

"Hosoda?" he ventured, even though he knew Seiki could not have grown that much hair since dinner unless the egg salad really had been poisoned.

"Takeru!?"

"… Taichi-san?"

"Geh, geroff," came the muffled voice from beneath him. An uncomfortably familiar voice, in spite of Takeru's hands clawing at his face.

Hastily Takeru rolled away, ending up with more stones lodged in his back. He lay there with his eyes squeezed shut, breathing heavily, hoping he'd camouflage with the darkness and his attacker, having conveniently lost his memory as a result of their battle, would trot off on his merry way.

No such luck. "Geez, Takeru, get up for pete's sake," said Taichi from above. He took hold of Takeru's wrist and pulled him to his feet.

They stood awkwardly – or Takeru did, he couldn't see Taichi but figured no one could look more like a foal new on his legs than he did now. Then he felt Taichi's hand wrap around his arm and he was steered toward the nearest streetlamp. Taichi climbed the fence deftly and Takeru followed, still feeling like his stomach had folded in on itself.

Awash in the milky lamplight, Taichi folded his arms. His lips were pinched in a stern frown, rare enough for Taichi but no less striking fear in the hearts of lesser men. It was a look that said, _Surrender now, for all hope is lost._

"Hi," Taichi said, nothing short of menacing.

Takeru smiled, sort of, and made an embarrassed noise like the squeak of an unoiled door hinge.

"Now don't give me any BS," Taichi leaned his elbow against the lamppost. "What in the holy land of Whatthefrick are you doing out here, off campus, by yourself?"

"Origami," was what Takeru wanted to say. He was becoming helplessly angry. Angry because he was helpless. The folly of his non-plan began to dawn on him, now that Taichi was regarding him with dark circles under his eyes.

But he'd never been good at back-talking, not to senpai at least. So he licked his lips, and told the truth.

"I couldn't just sit on my butt and do nothing," he blurted out. "It's my D3. My responsibility. I failed to protect it. So I have to be the one to get it back."

"Respons – you want me to talk to you about responsibility?" Taichi thundered. "Your _responsibility_ was to wait for Koushirou and me at Aomori! Where it's safe! Now Koushirou's on his way to try to sneak into the school, and he's gonna spend an hour searching for you that he could have spent tracking your thief! What were you going to do, what? Were you going to hitchhike across Japan, hope that eventually you'd bump into Hosoda, and beat him with your cleats until he forked over your D3?"

"We don't wear cleats," Takeru murmured into his chest. "… I'm sorry."

Taichi sighed. Not an angry sigh, Takeru thought. Tired. Frustrated. A Chasing Brainless Adolescents across Tokyo sigh.

"I – I don't know what happened," he said with a shake of his head.

"Okay," Taichi said. He scrubbed at his face with his fists. Takeru noticed, as if for the first time, how much taller he'd grown than Taichi. It was a strange feeling to be chastised by someone he respected, who had always been the equivalent of a big brother to him, and who now had to look up to shout at him. "Okay. Man," he broke off, suddenly leaning toward Takeru and taking a deep whiff. "I can't believe it. You really have been drinking."

"I'm really sorry," Takeru said quickly. "It was stupid. I'm stupid. Today, at least. But it won't happen ever, ever again." Remembering this was his best, very _female_ friend's notoriously overprotective brother, he added, "I'm swearing off alcohol. I will never enjoy a martini. I will never hit on a barmaid. I'll even stay away from beer-battered fish."

"Relaaax!" Taichi gripped Takeru's shoulders. "Dude, no one can get drunk from _beer-battered fish."_

"I would be the first," Takeru insisted. Taichi gave him a shake.

"Look, I'm not here to browbeat you. Heaven knows I've done worse. You don't need to 'swear off alcohol.' Just… don't get hammered so far from home next time, okey-dokey?"

He grinned. Takeru had never been more grateful for Taichi's grin. "Okay."

"Now I'm going to call Koushirou and we'll revise the plan." Taichi rummaged through his pocket and produced his phone and a flashlight. "Ah, here, you fix this." He dumped the flashlight and a few AA batteries in Takeru's hands. "When it died on the way here, I couldn't see well enough to replace the batteries."

Takeru fumbled with the flashlight. "What are you going to do with me?" he asked, dropping an old battery on the ground.

"Tie you up and stick you in the trunk of my car, then throw you on the shoulder of the highway for the wolves. Don't litter."

"You don't own a car." Takeru stuck the old batteries in his pocket.

"We'll bring you back to Aomori, I guess. They'll decide whether you stay or go home. Um. But just in case they think I kidnapped you, you'll have to go in yourself."

"Alright," Takeru sighed, deflating. He did still want to be part of the rescue, but figured protesting would be pushing it.

Taichi was frowning at his cell phone. "I think we're out of range. I can't get a signal."

Something clicked in Takeru's mind. "Taichi-san, before, wasn't your digivice blinking?"

"Yeah, that was you, right?" Taichi paused. " – Oh. You haven't got yours."

They stared at each other.

"Aauugh!"

* * *

Koushirou sneezed into his sleeve.

Someone thrust a tissue in his face. "Here."

"Danks," he said, snatching the tissue and blowing a snot storm out of his nose. Sneaking into Aomori through the bathroom window had not been one of his brightest ideas. Evidently no one ever cleaned in there. He'd been assaulted by dust and grime and who knows how many germs, and of course his allergies had kicked in. He sat on the mattress and gave a magnificent sniff.

"Hnrrghh," he said.

"You just vacuumed a truckload of snot into your esophagus," Nakata said, watching him from the head of the bed.

"Why don't you just hang on to these." Yuichi held out the box of tissues, which he'd kept tucked in his arms while he paced the room ever since Nakata had ushered Koushirou inside.

After squeezing through the highly unsanitary window, Koushirou had dangled his feet over the side and tried to slowly lower himself down. But dangling apparently required more concentration than he'd thought, and before he knew it he was on his rear with dust in his nostrils and slime staining his pants. Then he'd been accosted by a red-haired boy with thick, surprised eyebrows, who'd introduced himself as Nakata Shigeo and asked if he had come to kidnap more students. Then he'd said Koushirou didn't look much like a serial killer and that any friend of Takeru's was probably an alright sort of guy, and that he'd take him to Takeru's room even if it meant facing the wrath of his anal-retentive roommate.

Which, Koushirou had to admit, described Kakitani Yuichi with pinpoint accuracy.

"He up and vanished out of nowhere," Yuichi said. Hands free of the tissue box, he was now occupied with straightening Takeru's pillows. He tore one from beneath Nakata's head. "He was with us in the gymnasium, but when I got back to the room, his stuff was already gone. I thought he'd gone to the bathroom, so I didn't report him. Then one of the TAs banged on my door and said the police had seen him sneak off."

"Great." Koushirou groaned, flopping on his back. Nakata pulled his legs out of the way just in time. "I did not need this. I really did not need this."

"You were coming here to meet Takeru," Nakata recalled. "He wasn't supposed to leave."

"Which means you were already planning on sneaking in here," Yuichi said hoarsely. He tugged at his pajama shirt. "I should tell on you."

"Do that." Nakata waved at the door. "And I'll tell them you were the one who let him in."

Yuichi's mouth fell open. He croaked a few incredulous, disgruntled noises, then plunked down on his bed.

"I'm not here to cause trouble," Koushirou assured him.

"Fine," Yuichi snapped. "I don't have anything to do with this." So saying, he shimmied under the sheets and flipped them over his head. Koushirou wondered how he could bear it in this heat.

"So," Nakata began, sitting up cross-legged and grinning at Koushirou. "What's the plan? Any idea where Takeru's gone? Was he kidnapped? Are we going to spring him?"

Koushirou waved his hands around. "Nothing like that. The police saw Takeru-kun sneak off campus. I'm sure he went looking for Hosoda. Hosoda stole something of his, right?"

"And that thing was important enough to him that he dared to run away?"

"That's what it looks like." Koushirou wiped his nose with a wad of tissue. He balled it up, sniffled, and tossed it in the wastebasket. "Looks like there's not much I can do here. Just one thing." He looked at Nakata. "Did you know Hosoda Seiki? Or any of his friends?"

Nakata's eyes squinted under his dark brow. Koushirou thought he resembled a Tasmanian Devil with that look. "He didn't really hang out with anyone that I know of," he replied. "He used to want to hang out with us. Well, Takeru. He was creepy. I saw him watching Takeru more times than I think Takeru noticed." He shook his head. "But I figured…"

"Figured, what?" Koushirou pressed.

"Well… I thought Hosoda was into him." He shrugged. "Y'know. My friend Kitamura, he found a boyfriend here, and Takeru's pretty attractive when he's not being thick. Attractive as far as guys go, I mean. I don't swing that way," Nakata clarified.

"I'll put that on the record," Koushirou said dryly. "Well, I can't begin to guess Hosoda's sexual orientation, but I doubt it's relevant here. You can't think of anyone he seemed close to?"

"No," Nakata shook his head. "I told you, he's a creep. He didn't really talk about himself. Once he took a call on the phone, but it was probably his mom. I overheard, it was definitely a mature woman's voice."

Koushirou really wanted to ask what exactly Nakata thought he knew about mature women, then decided it wasn't worth his sanity.

"Last question: Do you know where his room is?"

Nakata swung his legs over the bed. "Second floor, east wing, I forget what number. C'mon, I'll take you there."

* * *

The campgrounds used to give Yamato that stomach-churning nostalgia, the kind where your chest tightens, yesterday's dinner leaps blithely within your intestines, and you somehow cannot make one iota of sense because the tumult of memories and feelings is too loud in your head. The name "Shiroike" fit the camp freakishly well – _"white pond,"_ and indeed, on that August morning exactly six years ago, the pond had been engulfed in white. The sight of it caused a barrage of memories, warm memories, frightening, shameful, proud. And passionate. There had been such passion, such strength of spirit, in those days, that even he, the lone wolf, couldn't help but wonder that they hadn't somehow surpassed themselves when it was over.

Each memory brought bile to Yamato's throat. He raised a tremulous hand to his mouth and attempted to smoke, but ended up coughing and sputtering. _Surpassed themselves,_ what a joke. If anything, he was more confused than he'd been back then, when his parents were still newly divorced and sailing the red river of regret.

Hadn't he fought with a similar fear back then? Hadn't he looked around and seen the changes in his friends, the way they'd matured, grown wiser, and wondered why he couldn't see any equivalent changes in himself? What had followed created a rift between him and his friends. To this day, he couldn't decide whether or not heading off on his own had been a good idea.

Maybe that was why being at the camp set him off, made him wish to be anywhere else. He felt flooded by the same irrational, useless fury that had fed him as a kid. It made his fingers tingle, gave him the itch to flee. He was enclosed in an open space. He needed to get out, but there were no swan-shaped paddle boats to be found outside of theme parks.

Cigarette. A twitch of his fingers and smoke funneled from his mouth. Takeru used to ask him if he could blow smoke rings or shapes. He'd tried. Bad idea. Now he left the smoke tricks to Gandalf.

"I know that one. It's Draco. The dragon."

"Wow, I'm shocked. You're right. And you didn't even add a tagline like 'The Most Supreme Stinker' or 'He Whose Armpits are Full of Gerbils.'"

"Ken, come on, dragons are way too cool for armpit gerbils. I know it because I'm the dragon slayer _king._ Arrr. Fear me, ye of the flammable breath."

"Agumon wouldn't appreciate your saying that, you know."

"Is Agumon among the stars? I don't think so. Only starry dragons need be afeared, I'm terrible."

"So your dragon-slaying prowess is restricted to celestial dragons? That kind of limits your scope."

"But Hydra sprouts new heads every time you lop one off, right? So it's actually a whole lot of dragons."

"Hydra's more of a serpent than a dragon…"

Yamato climbed the hill toward his star-gazing kouhai. Daisuke and Ken were on their backs, side by side, Daisuke waving his arm frantically about the sky. Yamato stood a few yards away and listened. Their friendly banter brought on another kind of nostalgia, quieter, more of a rub than a sting or a slap. He dropped the cigarette on the ground, stamped it out.

Then his digivice went haywire.

"Everyone up!" he cried, wrenching the device from his belt, staring at the erratic pulse on the miniscule screen. Daisuke and Ken shot to their feet with alacrity, D3s in hand.

"We should stake out the stairs," Daisuke hissed. He and Ken crouched behind Yamato.

Yamato nodded. "I'll double back in case he tries to escape. You two cut him off at the stairs."

The group broke apart, each headed to his respective post. Yamato took advantage of his long legs and sprinted behind the office cabin. Daisuke and Ken, both more athletic, had time to arrange themselves at different points along the stairs and shrink into the brush. The camp fell silent.

Before long, Yamato heard the pad of footsteps ascending the stairs. Although the tiny image on his digivice barely marked Hosoda's movement, Yamato knew the more advanced D3s could zoom in enough to gauge his progress. He, however, would have to rely on his night vision to tell when Hosoda was in pouncing distance –

Well, there was an unfamiliar silhouette. On the stairs. Hesitating. Why was he hesitating?

Whom he assumed to be Hosoda Seiki lifted Takeru's D3, looked at it uncertainly. His shoulders stiffened. In a flash Yamato realized – he was about to make a break for it.

Not a moment too soon, Yamato flew out from behind the cabin and blocked Hosoda's escape down the stairs. Hosoda whirled in the other direction, caught sight of Ken, and veered to the left. But Daisuke was still hidden at the very top. With a wild war cry, Daisuke propelled himself at Hosoda, coming at him with arms wide open. They crashed into each other. Yamato and Ken rushed to Daisuke's aid, but Hosoda's knee connected with Daisuke's abdomen and he darted off while Daisuke plunged down the stairs.

With one deft move, Ken grabbed Daisuke from behind, halting his descent. "Are you all right?" Yamato heard Ken ask as he followed Hosoda toward the ring of cabins. He didn't stay to here Daisuke's response. He moved more swiftly and fluidly than he had since he and Taichi had chased a bus downtown because Taichi had left his iPod on it. This was more important than forgotten iPods. His little brother's D3 was at stake.

"Hosoda!" His voice, raw and harsh, poured out of him. "Hosoda Seiki, stop where you are before I do something I'll regret!"

He spotted Hosoda in the center of the ring of cabins. The kid was fast – he'd covered double the ground Yamato had. But now he'd stopped. Yamato doubted it was because he'd ordered him to.

The air around him visibly shifted, taking on a rosy hue, then began to undulate. A spectrum of colors spread itself across the sky like a patchwork quilt. The hairs on Yamato's neck and arms stood up straight. He felt what was happening before he saw it.

The sky ripped open with Hosoda Seiki before the Digital Gate.

* * *

_It is killing me that I'm not able to add a soundtrack, "DUN DUN DUNNNN."_

**Chapter Notes:**

1.]_ whoever got stuck next to him would end up as his pillow, willing or unwilling:_ At a camp one year, we took a ride a couple hours away. On the return trip, the girl next to me fell fast asleep and I became her headrest for a while. We didn't know each other well; otherwise I would have been fine with it. But I tried to wake her up, and she only fell asleep on me again! I sympathize with Koushirou. (But at the same time, envy him. I am a mass of complicated emotions.)

2.] And Sherlock Holmes says it's bad to theorize without any data. ;D

3.] _nomikai:_ A drinking party. It's a normal part of both student and business culture in Japan because it gives hard-working people a chance to relax and become closer. However, the drinking age in Japan is 20, so it's generally not acceptable for a minor like Takeru to participate.

_Thanks once again for reading! This whole arc is taking a little longer than I expected, so we'll see Mimi either next chapter or the one after! Thanks for your patience and feedback! Feeeeeed the slug if you dare!_


	6. Bloody Anniversary

_A/N: Here we are at Chapter 6! Thanks for all your encouragement last chapter. Since tomorrow I've got to go to work chasing seven year olds under the hot hot sun, I did my best to finish this and update tonight, because who knows when I'll have the energy to write again. :P Don't take that too seriously. Chapter 7 is pretty clear in my head. I mean, it's all MIMI._

_Special thanks to Viridian Wings, who caught an inconsistency in Chapter 5 which has since been rectified. You're awesome, and it's great to know my readers have my back!_

_Enjoy!_

* * *

**Chapter Six**

**Bloody Anniversary**

"_Drive on. We'll sweep up the blood later!"  
- Katherine Hepburn_

** 08.01.2006**

** TUES**

** Anniversary **

After an hour of fruitless scouting, Taichi figured they'd seen enough of the town to chart a map of it. Hitchhiking across Japan no longer sounded like such a bad idea. At least it would get them off their feet. They could hire a private jet and fly to New Zealand, join up with a National Geographic expedition and spend a week snorkeling with the sting rays for all the good trudging around Shinagawa was doing. The errant digivice signal continued to elude them, and Koushirou had either forgotten how to be Koushirou or was dead because he wouldn't answer his phone.

"He'd better have a five-star excuse for this," Taichi grumbled, pocketing his cell phone. "He ran out of battery life, as if that would ever happen. He suddenly realized the smell of me gives him conniptions. He was abducted by jolly drunk folk singers and forced to play the mandolin until his fingers get all blistery and peely."

His traveling companion, the injured and beleaguered Takaishi Takeru, looked at him sidelong as a clump of sweat-drenched bangs flopped limply over his brow.

"He must be in a lot of trouble," he said.

"I know," Taichi nodded gravely. "I am jinxed without my Koushirou. Usually I'd get along alright with my dashing good looks and generally charmed existence, but even that's deserted me. We make quite a pair, Takeru. We are brainless and luckless."

"Which of us is which?"

Taichi paused thoughtfully. "Well, I'm both. Don't ask to go halves because I'm not sharing. Oh, alright, if you insist – you can be Less."

"We are doomed to wander in circles for a hundred years," Takeru sighed, scuffing his shoe at some loose gravel. "I bet we stumbled into a fairy ring."

"A what?"

"A fairy ring, you know, a ring of mushrooms that fairies dance in, and if you step in it you are cursed. You may die young or become invisible to mortal eyes."

"I can still see you," Taichi pointed out. "You can see me."

Takeru shook his head sadly. "We probably both stepped in it and didn't realize."

"Die young, huh," Taichi murmured. He squinted along the road lined by ramen stands and bars and boutiques. They had returned to the land of the living, to streets illuminated by headlights and fluorescent signs, choked with bicycles and speeding taxis in spite of the hour. Taichi recalled seeing a photograph that showed a bird's eye view of a Shinagawa night. The roads had been streaks of yellow-gold while the rest of the city was flushed in an eerie green haze. A ghostly sort of beauty. Maybe tiredness made him easily moved, but the city seemed somehow too electric, as if energy were mushrooming outward and upward, growing more reckless the farther it went.

"Are you shivering?" Takeru placed a hesitant hand on Taichi's shoulder. "You can't be cold."

Taichi wrapped himself in his arms. His muscles were trembling, which really was a strange sensation while the rest of him felt somewhat like meat on a spit. By now they were probably both dehydrated. Anyone smarter would have thought to pack a water bottle or six. Jou was always good for remembering that sort of thing.

"Let's go in there and buy some drinks," Taichi suggested, pointing to a convenience store isolated at a street corner.

"The police –"

"– Can't be crawling the entire city, and anyway it's safer inside than out. It's not like you're a serial killer." He watched Takeru debate it with himself, the absent way his jaw sloped, his eyebrows knit like a pair of caterpillars. He decided he understood why Hikari claimed Takeru Uncertain was very cute. "Come on, don't be a wet blanket, Sir Floppy Hair." Swinging a careless arm around Takeru's shoulders, he towed him inside the store.

A blast of cold froze them where they stood. "Aaaaah," Taichi sighed into the welcome wave of air conditioning. "The life of an icicle, though fleeting, is not without envy."

"Yeah, I can see the attraction. Who _wouldn't_ want to be all melty and cone-shaped, and inspire passers-by to wax philosophical?"

"I'm _inspired_ to be _cold._ Just leave me here, and if I'm not melty and cone-shaped by the time you come back, you'll have to stick me in the refrigerated section among the iced teas and Gatorades. This is the part where you say, 'I hope your tongue freezes over, Taichi-san'," Taichi pointed out.

"I'm not going to say that," Takeru protested, averting his eyes and looking like he rather wanted to say it.

Gingerly flexing his injured hand, Takeru headed in the direction of the restroom to clean his wound. Taichi roved the aisles of snacks, sugary and salty and all obscenely overpriced. He wished Koushirou were with him to talk him out of buying a pack of Ring-Dings, since they'd only turn into gooey Essence of Ring-Ding in his pocket and he'd en up ambling around looking like he'd crapped his pants. But Koushirou wasn't with him, he was off drinking and badly harmonizing far away in some Scottish hamlet.

"Don't buy it," Takeru said from behind him. The flesh around his wound was pink and irritated, and his face and hair were wet. He brought his dripping self to Taichi's side. "Chocolate will make you thirstier. Besides, buying more than the bare essentials for survival will look like infidelity to Miyako-san. I'm already expecting to be charged extra every time I shop at her store for the next month."

Taichi replaced the Ring-Dings on the shelf. "You're a true Chosen, Takeru."

Ten minutes later, hydrated and emboldened, they resumed their trek through the city with a water bottle each. They made it as far as a train station and stopped by a bench. Without much hope, Taichi scanned his digivice, and was not surprised to find no signal. He reached around and massaged his neck.

"I think we need to call it quits, Takeru," he said.

Takeru's spirits plummeted. Amazed, Taichi stared; he'd never _seen_ someone's spirit plummet, but he was sure some weight in Takeru's chest, right where his sternum should be, had dropped suddenly and taken his shoulders with it.

"It's just that we aren't making any progress," Taichi went on, sympathetic but too tired to put much effort into an explanation. "You need to get back to camp. Besides, I'm worried that something's happened to Koushirou. Let's just grab a taxi and go to Aomori."

Takeru gave a reluctant shrug. Taichi suppressed the urge to shake him, to shout at him to stop acting like a kid. In these situations he liked to imagine he was with Hikari, that she was the one being stubborn and annoying, and then he could keep his head on straighter. Only Takeru was quite different from Hikari; for one thing, she would never just silently pout. She would protest and stoically resolve to continue on by herself, and maybe his way did make more sense but, after all, her D3 was her most important item. Then they'd have a huge fight and wander a while fuming at each other, until she hugged him and he apologized and they worked out a compromise between them.

At the same time, he was glad he wasn't with Hikari, because then her crestfallen face would make him just as desperate as Takeru, only more bull-headed and he wouldn't even spare a thought for whether or not it was wise to plunge on past his limit.

"Listen." He propped his arm against the wall near Takeru's head. "There's still a chance that one of the others will find something. And even if we don't find it tonight, we're bound to eventually. Hosoda's parents may know something. Or how about that Kawada Noriko? She helped Koushirou out – maybe she knows more than she let on. But, look, we're both exhausted. You're probably in a heap of trouble, and the longer you put off dealing with it the worse it's going to get. Let's start by doing what we can, alright? We'll –"

He broke off, interrupted by the shrill wail of his digivice. A blinking red mark faded in and out on the screen. Takeru stared at him, bug-eyed. "Damn, spoke too soon," Taichi said, breaking into a sprint, "this way!"

They followed the road around a bend, down an alley. Taichi had no clear idea of where he was going, except that his digivice's chirruping grew wilder the closer they got to the city outskirts. "I wish," he panted as the lights started disappearing, "that our digivices were like your D3s, and all our signals were color-coded."

"Who else could it be other than Hosoda?" Takeru raced on beside him.

Taichi had no answer to that. All was a shadowy blur but for the vague details his flashlight afforded them – threads of grass surging into pavement, the smear of a cat slipping covertly into shadow. Judging by the signal on Taichi's digivice, he – Hosoda – wasn't that far off and didn't appear to be on the move. They were closing in on him. Taichi sped down a flight of cement stairs leading who-knows-where, a demon's den or the door to hell, loping down the steps two, three at a time. Maybe he skipped one too many, or maybe he tripped. But suddenly he lost his footing, his body twisted the wrong way, and the thought crossed his mind that he should really throw his arms out in front to protect his head. The funny part was he couldn't really bring himself to move.

Lights flashed before his eyes and his last conscious thought was _This is_ and then the world collapsed into white. The gears of his mind churned to a halt. He could see and was not sure of what he was seeing. Beyond that, he didn't care to try. And _he could not feel his body._

He couldn't hear. Or was it that he _wouldn't?_

His arms swung limply, streamed uselessly from his sides.

Then his body crashed like a bag of sand.

"Ow – OW! Shit!" Dazed at the bottom of the stairs, Taichi raised himself up on his elbows. He brought a hand to his mouth. It came away shaking, slick with blood.

"Are you okay?" Takeru shrieked in the most amusing girly voice Taichi had ever heard. Not even _Mimi_ could shriek like that. Well, maybe she could, if someone were bleeding all over her shoes. Takeru leaped the last few steps. The flashlight beamed rudely in Taichi's face.

"Aaugh, geez!"

"Sorry, sorry!" Takeru pressed his palm to Taichi's forehead and gently turned his head. _"Ugh._ You're a mess. I think you've got holes in at least five different places on your head… And there's a geyser spouting from your mouth."

Taichi touched his chin, which turned out to be a bad idea. Apparently all he had left of his chin was a lumpy mound slightly pear-shaped. That was unlucky. His chin may not have been all that masculine, but he'd been fond of it. It had served him well and endured all sorts of abuse for seventeen years. Now Yamato would never again draw Groucho Marx eyebrows on it while Taichi snoozed upside down on his couch. He would have to live with the mashed up, indistinct, unadorned by Groucho Marx ruins of a chin.

"Tell me it's not as bad as it feels," Taichi groaned, wincing when just moving his mouth made stars burst under his eyelids.

"I'm hoping it's not as bad as it _looks,"_ Takeru answered grimly. "There's a lot of blood."

"From my geyser," Taichi added, even though he hadn't meant his injuries.

The shock of falling had distracted him, but now even pain gave precedence to fear. Whatever – detachment – had stopped him from protecting himself during the plunge, had numbed not only his body, but also – it felt silly to say, but also his _soul._ The minute his feet flew out from under him, he'd stopped thinking, stopped _caring_ what happened to him. It had been the same at the campsite, watching his hand flicker like an old film, foggy with age. But then he'd felt nothing but a brief, immobilizing flash, and he'd come to his senses with only an indistinct residual memory of what had – had _not_ happened. This time he'd lost more than a couple seconds of thought. For one frightening moment, he'd felt like he didn't even exist at all.

He raised his treacherous arms just to make sure they were there and working. At least they were no longer noodley and disobedient, flailing at his sides, leaving him to drop on his face like a clumsy toddler.

Takeru was saying something about hospitals and stitches. Taichi started to nod, then realized nodding was probably Bad as well. His fingers wandered upward, to his pulpy, copper-tasting mouth. He slipped one inside. "… Takeru, take that flashlight and look for my tooth."

"Your – what!?"

_"My tooth!_ Am I speaking Gobbledegook?" Takeru gave him a look that told him he certainly didn't sound intelligible, toothless wonder that he was. "One of my very precious teeth. Makes me pretty. Has to be here. You look."

He jabbed a finger at Takeru, narrowly missing his left eye. Scooping up the flashlight, Takeru hunched over and started inspecting the ground, leaving Taichi to process the world of hurt he was floating in like a slab of very tired driftwood. He closed his eyes, which only made him dizzy. He spat blood and saliva into a dusty corner.

"Found it!" Takeru cried, standing and peering at something tiny clasped between his fingers.

"Hold it by the crown," Taichi directed, "not by the root. No, just give it here, actually."

Takeru laid the tooth in his hand. Taichi splashed it with water and popped it back into its socket.

Takeru shrank back, repulsed.

"If you think this is disgusting," Taichi mumbled around the hand in his mouth, "never try playing soccer without a mouth guard."

He patted his pants. His digivice was not – oh. It was still clasped in his other hand, safe and sound. But the signal was gone again.

"I'm sorry, Takeru," Taichi sighed, staring mournfully at the unresponsive black screen.

"It's okay," Takeru replied with a hasty smile. "Everything you said before was true. I'm not worried."

Taichi looked up at him. It would probably be unwise of him to let Takeru go on believing he was a good liar when there were so many beastly people in the world who would take advantage an unassuming kid. Right now, though, Taichi was too grateful that he'd even made the effort to lie.

"Looks like we're going to the hospital." Takeru helped Taichi stand. He kept a firm grip on his elbow while he reoriented himself.

Making sure his uprooted tooth was semi-secure in his mouth, Taichi dipped his head, pride more than a little bruised. So much for his _plan._ Everything had gone awry since the moment he'd left Koushirou on the bus.

_Well done, Yagami; having lost your brain and your luck, now you're losing teeth and every other sometimes-useful body part too,_ he thought to himself.

He ached far too much to laugh.

* * *

"What's happening?" Daisuke craned his neck to see around the cabins blocking his view of Yamato and Hosoda, wincing as Ken lugged him up the wooden steps. A great purple lump was swelling beneath his eye, and Ken was sure the rest of him would look quite dented and beat up in daylight, but still Daisuke trooped stalwartly onward. Ken took pity on him and decided not to mention that his pants had slipped and his boxers were glowing in the moonlight.

This really was a lot easier when they had their Digimon with them. On the whole, fewer body parts were injured. And no one got humiliated by falling down stairs or losing their pants in the process of saving the world.

Every few seconds Ken had to brush stray hairs from his loose ponytail out of his eyes. They made a perfect tag team, Hairy and Depantsy.

Together they flew past the cabins and darted around the fire pit towards Yamato and the intruder. They stood within a shroud of cascading color. Ken's breath fled him at the sight of the brilliant aurora, nebulous and unearthly, ripping a seam in the night sky.

_So this is how the Chosen Children were first invited into the Digital World._ Long buried envy briefly suffused his mouth. He forced himself to swallow.

"He opened the Gate," Daisuke panted. "I can't believe it, he actually opened the Gate!"

"He hasn't gone through yet," Ken said, jaw tight. "We can still stop him."

From the look of it, Yamato had everything under control, anyway. As they neared, Yamato launched himself at Hosoda, clawing at his legs, and sent both of them tumbling to the ground. They wrestled in a tangle of limbs, Yamato's furious threats mingling with Hosoda's thin, high-pitched squealing. Hurling himself into the fray, Daisuke slammed his hands into Hosoda's chest, smearing his face in the dirt. Ken squeezed in between them and pinned Hosoda's arms.

Even caged by three men, the boy continued to struggle underneath. His pathetic shrieks grew louder and more desperate. Ken heard Yamato let out an "oof!" just as he himself took an elbow in the eye – Daisuke's elbow, as it turned out, thrashing wildly to pinion Hosoda's upper torso. Suddenly, Hosoda's squeals morphed into a heart-stopping scream of pain. His body started to convulse. Ken felt static travel up his arm, and scanning the ground, found the source of it clutched in Hosoda's viselike grip: Takeru's D3.

It was hard to make out the color under the glare of the aurora, but the shape was definitely that of a D3. The screen was flashing as if the D3 itself were panicking, shooting wormlike branches of electricity under Hosoda's nails and up his arm. Ken's eyes swiveled to Hosoda's face, which had taken on the putrid hue of a toad's belly. His eyes caught Ken's for a bare instant, then rolled into his head.

"Guys, I think –" Ken dodged another wayward elbow. "I think it's hurting him!"

"Well, what – do you expect – me to – _cut it out, what do you think you are, a baboon?"_

Since Daisuke was otherwise occupied, Ken decided it was prudent to leave him alone. Yamato was now oofing every time Hosoda's knee met his groin; no help there, either.

Ken stretched his arm as far as it would go. As soon as he brushed Hosoda's hand, electric splinters lanced through his fingers. He recoiled. So touching the D3 wasn't going to work. He needed another plan. He needed to deactivate that D3.

Luckily, he wasn't known as Japan's Most Well Groomed Prodigy for nothing. Groping blindly, Ken peeled back one of Hosoda's fingers and grasped it hard. _Sorry about this,_ he sent mentally, and gave it a rough yank.

Hosoda howled. His grip weakened and the D3 slid from his hand to the grass.

Immediately, the sky began to calm. The aurora folded in on itself, collapsing into a roiling, shimmering ball. It shrank and shrank until it disappeared among the myriad pinpricks of stars.

Leaping up, Ken tested the D3 briefly, and gave a relieved sigh when he wasn't scorched. The surface was hot to the touch, but no longer sparking. He compared it to his own D3: the signal on his screen twinkled green. It was without a doubt Takeru's D3.

"Hand it over," Yamato said. An enormous clump of mud had settled on the bridge of his nose. He took the D3 and clipped it to his belt, next to his own digivice. Then he whirled on Hosoda. "Come on, up!" He and Daisuke each took an arm and hoisted the unresisting Hosoda to his feet. They frogmarched him to a log near the fire pit. Ken followed, torn between amusement and full body exhaustion.

Looming over him, Yamato glared down at the boy. "Is your name Hosoda Seiki?" he rumbled.

When no answer was forthcoming, Daisuke grabbed the back of his shirt. "He is according to what his mom's written on his tag," he smirked.

Hosoda Seiki jerked away. "Let go of me!"

"I guess his name _could_ be Made in Taiwan," Daisuke snickered.

"Daisuke." Ken frowned at him. Then he turned his attention to Hosoda. "Mind telling us why you decided to steal Takeru-kun's D3?"

Beneath his mussed bangs, Hosoda's hazel eyes were narrowed. "What do you care?" he snapped. "Yours _works."_

"I care because it doesn't belong to you. It belongs to my friend, who was extremely distressed when he realized it was missing," Ken replied sharply.

Hosoda turned his scowl on the ground. Sighing, Ken changed his approach.

"Look," he said, more gently, "we know you were there the day Oikawa activated the Spores. We know you saw Digiworld and met your partner. Romamon, wasn't it?"

After a wary pause, Hosoda lifted his head. With a puzzled glance, he nodded. "Romamon. And we haven't been able to go back ever since."

"It's not that I don't sympathize, but you can't go stealing other people's digivices in revenge," Yamato put in. His eye kept twitching.

"Besides, it obviously doesn't work," Daisuke added.

"Shut _up!"_ Hosoda cried, shrugging them off. "None of you have the right to say those things to me! None of you!"

"Hosoda-kun," Ken pressed on valiantly, more than a little annoyed with his overeager teammates. "I know it's hard –"

"And you least of all!" Hosoda thrust a finger at Ken, eyes blazing. "I know your face. Who doesn't know your face, Ichijouji Ken! Just because you've got an all-access pass to Digiworld, even though you're just like us! Just because of that, _don't think you're any better than us!"_

The raw anger in his voice was unlike anything Ken had ever heard. At least not since he'd taken up the mantle of the Digimon Emperor, and encountered such seething hatred from Digimon and Chosen alike. So he'd erected an icy fortress and called it his kingdom. Now all at once he felt as if he were choking on the frozen shards leftover from the purge of the Emperor. Maybe he wouldn't have been as stunned by Hosoda's outburst if he hadn't expected – if he hadn't hoped –

– not that it mattered what he'd hoped. He _was_ like them. It wasn't fair that, just because he'd received his digivice before he'd been infected with the Spore, he could visit his friends in Digiworld as much as he wanted while the rest went years without meeting with their partners even once.

He'd never told anyone how guilty he felt about that, not even Daisuke.

_… Especially not Daisuke,_ Ken amended as he caught his best friend's eyes on him. If there was anything he wouldn't hazard discussing with Daisuke, it was his "reign" as Emperor. Daisuke just couldn't understand. What exactly it was he couldn't understand, Ken couldn't put his finger on, but it existed. It existed and it was the last barrier separating them, so of course Daisuke wanted to crush it. Because crushing was what Daisuke did, when something hurt his loved ones. Holding back nothing. Melting ice with fire and sometimes singeing what he didn't mean to harm, but always with the best of intentions.

Ken hadn't liked being crushed back then but he was glad of it, because destruction had created space for recovery. But there was part of him that would probably never let go of the last of his guilt. Sometimes it crept into his dreams, hot and silky and sickening.

"Enough out of you." Yamato pulled Hosoda up by the arm, and Ken broke out of his reverie. "You're not exactly in the position to hurl accusations like that, pal. You stole my little brother's digivice and caused a heck of a lot of trouble. And cost us all a night's sleep."

"Shutting up now," Hosoda mumbled. He didn't fight it as Yamato shoved him in the direction of the stairs. Daisuke followed with the flashlight, and Ken took his place at his side. Before he could say anything, Daisuke rammed his elbow into Ken's ribs.

"Would you stop doing that?" Ken squeaked through gritted teeth.

"I know what you're thinking," Daisuke said, ignoring him. "And if you let anything that snot-faced bed-wetter said get to you, I'll personally sock you in the eye so that you look just like me."

"Like we're not already a matched set," Ken grumbled, massaging his side, "Depantsy."

Daisuke gave him a blank look. "Huh?"

"Your pants are falling down."

Daisuke paused, looked down and cursed. Ken left him to tend to his boxers and trudged resolutely after Yamato.

* * *

Who had certainly had better days.

Snarling under his breath, striding along quicker than Hosoda could keep up, Yamato clambered down Shiroike's hillside. He'd climbed steeper hills before – he'd climbed Mt. Sanbe just last fall for lack of anything better to do while at his grandmother's – but each trek up and down that familiar slope stirred thoughts and emotions he usually saved for self-reflection and sleepless nights.

"Took a while getting here, didn't you," he growled. He didn't need to glance at his watch to guess the time. They had arrived close to two a.m., and waited around for at least a couple hours before Hosoda showed up. It was practically morning.

What irony that he was _here_ to recover a stolen digivice on the Chosen's anniversary.

"I got lost," Hosoda admitted reluctantly. "I only had a vague idea where the camp was. Couldn't make heads or tails of the map I found on the Internet."

"Kawada Noriko gave you that vague idea, didn't she?" Yamato asked.

Hosoda's head snapped around. "How did you know about Nori-chan?"

"Nori-chan? Oh, you're tight, are you?"

"As a matter of fact! She's much nicer than you are. Sharper, too."

"Watch it." Yamato guided Hosoda away from a rotting step and ignored his glare. "For your information, she's the one who told _us_ where you were headed."

"… She did not." Hosoda regarded Yamato with a doubtful slant of his mouth. But he quickly looked away towards the approaching road.

Something in Yamato's stomach twisted. If he remembered rightly, Koushirou _hadn't_ said Noriko had given away Hosoda's location. Just that she'd told the other Spore Children about the gate at Shiroike. But there was something about Hosoda's expression… something about the unsure flicker in his eyes that nudged Yamato to push it.

"Actually, she did," he insisted. "We have all of you on record, you know. Everyone who went with Oikawa that day. Noriko-chan –" He threw in _chan_ as an afterthought; if he really wanted Hosoda to think they knew more than they did, it couldn't hurt to make him think they were on friendly terms with Noriko.

"– Noriko-chan told us it was you who stole Takeru's D3. And she told us you'd come here with it."

"You're lying." Hosoda was getting agitated quickly. "She wouldn't have told you, she _promised."_

Yamato shrugged. "Suit yourself."

"Look, I don't care if you're a senpai, you're on thin ice," Hosoda hissed. "We had a deal, okay, she and us. Even if she – she wasn't alright with it, but – she _promised,"_ he repeated, breathlessly. He raked his hair back.

"So she was supposed to cover up for you," Yamato said while making a mental note to mention Hosoda's "us" to the other Chosen. "She was your alibi and she fell through."

"No! She wasn't – we weren't – _involved,_" Hosoda blurted out. "I mean _she_ wasn't involved. With this. The thieving."

"Mmm."

"She wouldn't have said anything," he went on, sounding more certain. "She hates you too."

Yamato didn't know how he felt about being hated. He made no reply, and they fell into a tense silence.

At the foot of the stairs, Yamato's phone rang. He flipped it open.

"Takeru, good news –"

His brother cut him off before he could get in another word.

When Daisuke and Ken caught up with them, Yamato was just pocketing his cell phone. His lips were set in a stern line.

"We have to go to the hospital," he told them. "Who's got cash?"

* * *

Takeru spent fifteen minutes pacing the hospital lobby. Another ten staring at the breast cancer awareness brochures and ads for a gym membership tacked to the bulletin board. Eventually his legs gave out and he drifted towards the plush lobby chairs. Nearby stood – no, _towered _an impossibly huge aspidistra, which wasted no time in attacking him with its vicious leafy appendages.

A young nurse padded by and arched a slender eyebrow as he was extracting one long green tendril which had wormed into shirt. He started to wave at her but his nose itched, and then he was staring at the vinyl floor and sneezing into his knee.

Maybe she'd been impressed by the young man courageously thwarting his verdurous assailant. Maybe she would sing his praises to the other nurses under thirty during nurses-under-thirty coffee hour. Maybe they would laugh at the middle schooler with the floppy hair who got himself tangled in an aspidistra, and sneezed at it.

_Yeah, I'm smooth. Slipping-on-a-greased-floor-getting-intimate-with-the-wall smooth._

Bottom line, his underwear was simply not garish enough for superheroics.

He disliked hospitals. Not that he could claim to know many people who would don feathered hats and break into song at the prospect of spending the night somewhere that smelled so strongly of antiseptic and of – of _clean._ If clean could be counted as a smell. Which Takeru would vouch it could. Because he was smelling it now.

It made his nose itch.

Taichi had been MIA for half an hour. At the sight of the two of them, bleeding and road-weary, their mustachioed taxi driver had whisked them downtown at break-neck speed. Then he'd personally escorted them inside the hospital, dropped the cab fee, and spent the following fifteen minutes pacing with Takeru while a doctor tended to Taichi.

He'd finally disappeared after making Takeru promise to call his mother. Takeru would feel more grateful for all his help otherwise. Now _she_ was on her way here.

_Here lies Takaishi Takeru, the first recorded teenager to die by sheer force of motherly scorn._

The automatic doors glided open, and Yamato barreled in. Takeru blanched at the sight of his brother, untidy with scraggly, tumbleweed-like hair and grass-stained jeans. Stumbling along behind him was – Hosoda Seiki. A giddy grin spread across Takeru's face. Although Yamato had let him know over the phone that they'd rescued his D3, seeing Seiki here now – for the first time in what felt like ages, he could breathe freely.

"Takeru!" Daisuke pounded across the lobby. "Do you have any idea how much trouble you've caused, dimwit?"

_"Sorry," _Takeru sang in reply, grasping Daisuke's hand as he extended it and pulling him in for a quick side hug. "Next time I decide to have my D3 stolen, I'll clear it with your secretary first."

"Damn straight." Daisuke thumped his back.

"Here." Yamato bypassed hugging and plunked the green D3 in Takeru's hand. Takeru pressed it tightly between his palms, relieved beyond belief.

"Thank you," he said sincerely. He hid a smile as his brother blushed and looked down. His eyes fell on Takeru's bandaged hand.

"Are you okay?" he cried, concerned. "You didn't say you were hurt. What about Taichi? Did you really get drunk?"

"I'm fine, it's just a cut! Taichi-san misses his chin but he's all right, and can we talk about that later? What happened to _you?_ You look like you tried to wrestle with a pack of wild Boy Scouts. And lost."

"Just one delinquent Boy Scout, and in spite of our striking resemblance to the sad remains of a rodeo during Mardi Gras, I'd say the fight went in our favor," Ken put in, glancing sidelong at Seiki.

Takeru followed his gaze and hesitated. Miserable and bedraggled, Seiki had taken Takeru's seat, staring intently anywhere but at the Chosen. Takeru ran his thumb along the ridges of his D3, torn between pity and anger.

He wanted to be mad at Seiki. He deserved it. There was no reason to feel sorry for him. _Seiki_ wasn't the one who'd had to drag his friends out of bed at witching hour to tour an unknown city; _Seiki_ hadn't had to get one of those friends to the hospital because he'd _knocked out his tooth; Seiki_ wasn't the victim of deadly assault by aspidistra; and _Seiki_ wasn't soon to be violated by motherly scorn until all lingering delusions of independence were beaten out of him.

Really, he had no right to look so forlorn. He'd caused this, he was the thief, there was no reason to feel bad for him just because he was sniveling at the floor like a kicked puppy.

And yet.

"Dude," Daisuke said, "you should say something to him."

"I can't think of anything," Takeru whispered back.

"Uh, how about, 'd'you want me to slug you now, or somewhere less public?'"

Takeru turned to Ken. Ken shrugged at him. "… Takeru-kun, have you ever considered the charms of life as a hermit?"

"– Because I mean, if you're going to slug him, you might as well do it, seeing as we're already in a hospital and your mom's gonna have beef with you anyway –"

"Oh my gosh, my mom," Yamato interjected.

"I don't want to talk about my mom!" Takeru cried.

"No – I mean I think that's her getting out of that car."

"What!? Already?"

"Quick, which room is Taichi in?" Pivoting on his heel, Yamato backed off down the corridor.

"The morgue," Takeru deadpanned. "Where I'll soon be. Niisan, you'd abandon your only brother in his time of need?"

"Never mind. I'll get the room number from the receptionist. Good luck, little bro!"

Waving, Yamato disappeared around the corner.

* * *

"Yama," Taichi whined. "Remind me how scars are chick-magnets."

Yamato frowned. "Why the hell are you calling me that?"

Pointing to the nine jagged stitches running along his chin, Taichi replied, "Talking hurts. Too many syllables in your name."

_If it hurt that much, you wouldn't be talking at all._ Yamato scrubbed at his face. Taichi's appearance was better than he'd anticipated based on Takeru's hasty account over the phone. The entire left side of his face was swollen and tender-looking, like an overripe tomato. But the blood had been cleaned away, his avulsed tooth splinted, and aside from his mass of mushy jaw and unsightly stitches, he looked exactly like Taichi.

"I'll tell you what," Yamato said. "With your face like this, no one will pay attention to your clown ears."

"Har har. I take it that since you aren't wet, there's no thundercloud of gloom dogging your every dour footstep. So you must have found Hosoda."

"Yeah. We got Takeru's D3 back, but a Gate did open in Shiroike –"

"Ah," Taichi said, expression clearing.

"Ah, what?"

He gave a few cautious shakes of his head. "Nothing, there was a Gate, go on."

"I don't know why it opened, and I don't know if it would have let him through. The three of us had him pinned, Daisuke was kicking everyone, and Ken started shouting that Takeru's D3 was on the fritz. And I kind of saw it through the gap between Daisuke's legs and it was sparking like a frayed wire."

Taichi scowled. "Geez, if he broke it – well, then we'll break him. We'll have to let Koushirou take a look. Does Takeru know?"

"… I haven't gone into the details with him yet." Yamato leaned back with his hands shoved in his pockets.

Chuckling, Taichi's lips curved in a lopsided grin, favoring his sore left cheek. "You're too nice for a big brother. You probably saw his glittering, tearful smile and couldn't bring yourself to disappoint him."

"I'll tell him before he leaves," Yamato replied testily.

"Hey, I don't blame you. He is cute. Even Hikari thinks so and she only ever says _I'm_ cute."

"If by cute you mean insufferable."

"Yama!" Taichi resorted to pouting. "I'm an invalid. I'm _hurting._ You could say a few kind words."

"Stop calling me that, or Mimi'll catch on and I'll never hear the end of it."

"Mimi," Taichi groaned. He started to slap his forehead, then wisely switched to a consoling pat. "Shoot. I'm supposed to go meet her tomorrow. Today. Sora's going to kill me."

Yamato stiffened involuntarily.

"Well, whatever. I'm going to take loads of painkillers and sleep for twelve hours. She can kill me when I no longer ache."

At least Taichi didn't seem to notice his overreaction. He wondered idly if Taichi thought that talking about Sora like Yamato wasn't pissed at her, like yesterday's argument wasn't still fresh in his mind, would encourage him to put the incident in the past. Other people would put on an elaborate dance, choose every word only after careful deliberation. Taichi saw no point in beating around the bush and preferred to face the problem head-on. This was his version of verbal jousting. Yamato supposed he should appreciate the effort, even if his thick-skulled best friend hadn't really grasped the concept of tact.

What Taichi didn't get was it wasn't just _this_ incident. It was a series of incidents, some larger than others, stemming from sometime in junior high school when he and Sora were dating. It was unreasonable to expect they could just go back to ambling around tangled together like seaweed. But very typical of Taichi.

On the other hand, he and Sora had agreed early on that they didn't want to involve their friends in their problems. That was almost more challenging than trying to be civil with each other in public. Taichi was a meddler, and the seaweediest of the bunch; plus at the end of the day the Chosen simply knew each other too well for something like this to be kept a secret.

But still they tried. Their relationship as Chosen Children was too important.

"Can you do me a favor," Taichi asked. "Koushirou's at an internet café right nearby Aomori. Can you go pick him up?"

"Are you coming?"

"I wish. I'm a minor. The doc called my folks and they're on their way here." Heaving a sigh, Taichi backed to the wall so a nurse could push a tray cart down the corridor. "Koushirou called when we were on our way over here. He had his phone on vibrate while he was in Aomori and didn't notice any of my calls. But he's stuck there now and you're the only one who can escape."

"Okay, I'll get him," Yamato said, glad for an excuse to avoid seeing his mom. They started walking toward the lobby. Taichi folded his arms over his chest and fell into a brooding silence. His jaw probably hurt him more now, and Yamato tried to think of something helpful to say, but before he could come up with anything better than _Relax, chicks dig scars _and_ big awkward clown ears,_ Taichi mumbled something he had to strain to hear.

"This mission was a disaster, huh."

Surprised, Yamato paused by a restroom. "What makes you say that?"

"Just _look_ at us, Yamato," he snapped. "I've got nine stitches. Takeru sliced his hand and had to get a tetanus shot. You're all banged up and I'm betting the other two don't look so hot either. We got ourselves all split up. Communication failed. Chaos ensued."

"But we caught Hosoda," Yamato protested. "And Koushirou's fine."

"I," Taichi went on, quite determined to milk his dismal mood for all it was worth, "forced your brother to forget about tracking Hosoda by _falling down the stairs."_

"Daisuke fell down some stairs too. His eye looks like a potato."

"Daisuke is fifteen," Taichi replied impatiently. "Let him fall down all the stairs he wants; he's got time. This is my last year of high school."

Taichi wasn't making any sense. He _usually_ didn't, Yamato reminded himself, sense was to Taichi what collectible figurines were to an energetic dog – yet his sixth sense for Taichi Issues kicked into high gear. This would be an appropriate time to sock him out of his melancholia, except that between the pain in his jaw and the pain in his temple from Yamato's fist of iron, Taichi would probably black out. _That_ would be bummer to explain to his parents.

"Look, a busted chin isn't going to stop you from playing soccer," he said instead.

"We need to be more organized," Taichi muttered.

Why did he bother to say anything at all? "Fine, I'll sort by color, you by size."

"What?" Taichi finally looked at him just as they were entering the lobby. "Color? Of what?"

Catching sight of his mom and two police officers grouped around Takeru and Hosoda, Yamato cut the conversation short. He gave Taichi's shoulder a squeeze.

"I'd better go. You sure you'll be okay?"

"Yeah." Taichi still seemed distracted. "Take care."

Yamato left him and joined the others for a minute. His mother was engrossed in conversation with the police, one arm wrapped around Takeru, massaging his back. Yamato stayed long enough to remind Ken to tell Takeru about his D3's malfunction, and then went out before his mother had a chance to call him over.

Outside, he was surprised by a rare chilly wind. The sky had already begun to turn blush-colored at the horizon. It was strange being suddenly alone.

He walked to the bus station humming tiredly under his breath.

* * *

The dressing-down Takeru had expected didn't come until they were piled into Takaishi Natsuko's silver Acura. They only just fit. He sat in the front, with Ken, Daisuke, and Seiki packed into the back seat. Daisuke pressed his swollen eye against the cool window glass and quickly fell asleep. Ken and Seiki, however, were wide awake when Natsuko decided to tear into her youngest son.

The police wanted to escort them back to the precinct so Seiki's parents could pick him up and Natsuko could fill out some paperwork. At the hospital, Natsuko had been wet-eyed and clingy, and kept saying, "Don't you ever do this to me again, don't you ever!" Now that she was occupied driving downtown, Takeru could see her lips growing thinner and thinner, and the lines around her eyes deepening into ominous crevices.

It began with no warning. "You're grounded," she said predictably.

He sighed.

"And I want you to call the camp tomorrow and apologize for all the trouble you've caused. They turned the grounds inside-out looking for you. You have no idea how terrified I was when I got the call that you were gone. I thought you'd been abducted, or worse. 'My son would never run away and trouble me so much!' I thought I'd raised you to know better, Takeru."

"You did," he said miserably. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry isn't going to cut it. When you get home it's right to bed. If you're hungry you can eat something, but after that you're doing what I say. You'll finish your summer homework. You can go to basketball practice when it resumes, but you have to come straight home. No television. No Internet."

Takeru thought dismally of the long, long summer stretching out before him. "Geez, Mom, you want to impound my cell phone too?"

"I'm considering it."

He knew she would probably relax the rules after he'd been meek and obedient for a few days. With any luck, he'd manage to convince her to let him out for the Chosen's annual picnic, currently slated for next week.

"I just don't understand why," Natsuko went on. She gave the steering wheel a rough tug. "What could possibly have been so important that you felt justified in breaking camp rules, and wandering around on your own in a city you don't know?"

"Um." Takeru glanced at the rearview mirror. All he could see were Seiki's crinkled eyebrows and Ken's unruly mop of hair.

"I can take a guess, judging by the company you had with you," Natsuko sighed. "But I don't know what to make of Hosoda-kun."

"… It's not what you think," Takeru replied, desperate to get her mind off any scenarios she was concocting about Digiworld. "It's… Hosoda-kun and I had a bet."

His mother peered at him. "A bet," she repeated.

"It was really silly," he explained. "See, we're kind of like enemies." Seiki's expression in the mirror didn't budge. "So we had a bet to meet on an off-campus basketball court and have a one-on-one match. But there was some miscommunication, and he left earlier than I did. Then we both ended up getting lost."

"Uh-huh. And how did the rest of them get involved?"

"They weren't with us originally! I… I called Taichi-san when I couldn't find my way back, because I was too embarrassed to call you or Niisan. He came to get me and brought Niisan with him anyway. Daisuke and Ken were just along for the ride, because they were hanging out with Niisan and wanted to make fun of me." There, he'd managed to fit one smudge of truth into that humongonormous lie. "Then Taichi-san fell down the stairs…"

"I hope you apologized to him too," Natsuko fumed. "Dragging your friends out of bed because of your foolishness. It's your own fault he got hurt."

"I know." He really did.

"For someone who claims to like Hikari-chan as much as you do, you have a funny way of showing it."

She pulled to a stop at a red light. The captives in the car, afraid to be caught breathing, sat rigid as statues.

Daisuke snored into his seat belt.

Natsuko began to calm down, and Takeru prayed she wouldn't find her second wind. "I don't know that I believe you. You're so good at telling stories. Even when you were little, you would tell me the reason you couldn't eat salmon for dinner was because aliens could hear it digesting and would come to rip your stomach out at night."

"I really hated salmon," Takeru agreed.

Natsuko smiled. That was huge. He knew he wasn't off the hook yet, and if she ever found out how badly he'd lied he'd probably never again see the light of day. But thus far, she'd reacted much better than he'd expected.

He met Seiki's eyes in the mirror again. They were filled with a tumultuous mix of curiosity and puzzlement. And also bitterness.

Once more, Takeru felt a strong pull to say something to him. Talk with him.

Stop this before it turned into hate.

But Seiki looked away, out the window. Once they arrived at the precinct, he would go home with his family. Maybe they would never meet again.

_I'm not angry,_ Takeru sent mentally. And was surprised to realize it was true.

* * *

Along the digital plane, a storm was brewing. Mobile darkness churned and rumbled, blending into the dancing light along the horizon. Someone walked an unseen path, stoking the fire, walking among the flames with his hands and feet bare. He paused to wipe his palms on his jeans.

Funneling smoke roiled above, guiding the way to a vast, ink black sea.

He sat down where he was. A voiceless blockade. His shadow cast the sea in eternal darkness.

At his back, the sun rose.

* * *

_A/N: The heck is wrong with Takeru? Salmon is awesome!_

**Chapter Notes:**

1.] _Mt. Sanbe:_ In Shimane prefecture, where Yamato's grandmother (Bokura no War Game) lives. It's actually several mountains, but I'm sure Yamato didn't hike them all. ;)

_*theatrical voice-over* The Hosoda arc is OVER! What happens next? Was Koushirou really abducted by folk singers? Stay tuned to find out!_


	7. Speak Friend and Enter

_A/N: My apologies for the confusion when I first posted. It's fixed now and in a readable format :) Thank you for your patience._

_This chapter isn't dynamic like the previous ones. It's not going on my list of favorite chapters, but I think it works well as a transitional chapter, and introduces a key character. At the very least, you may be able to get a laugh out of it. I think it's still in need of some editing, though._

_FYI: In two weeks I start a study abroad program in Japan. This means fantastic opportunities for research, but not a whole lot of time for writing. I can't guarantee when the next chapter will be up. If you guys are lucky, I'll post chapter eight before I go, but considering my track record I don't want to make promises. But as long as I can, I'll try to write in Japan and not leave you guys hanging until December._

_Happy Anniversary, everyone!_

* * *

**Chapter Seven**

**Speak "Friend" and Enter**

"_If you contribute towards other people's happiness, you will find the true goal, the true meaning of life."  
- XIV Dalai Lama_

** 08.01.2006**

** TUES**

** Anniversary **

Sora's plan to sleep in on Tuesday morning was dashed at sunup by her mother, shaking her arm and hissing through a dream haze "Koushirou" and, oddly, "detergent." Wondering what Koushirou so desperately needed to wash in the wee hours of the morning, she spent a few minutes pawing the closet for the color-safe bleach until her mother's bewildered face reappearing in her room snapped her brain into gear. Not detergent, but "urgent."

She hurried to the family room, where she found Koushirou in the flesh.

"Good morning, Sora-san. How are you?"

She met that with a bleary it's-six-a.m.-and-I'm-on-_vacation_ stare.

"I brought you some banana nut muffins, my mother baked them. And, uh. Coffee."

Cue muffins. Wafting scent of banana and coffee. She was vaguely aware that he was trying to schmooze her, but too not-awake to chew him out for it and, ooh, Italian Roast.

"I realize I'm rather early for our trip to Narita, but I'm sorry to say, that is, um, I can't make it anymore. Neither can Yamato-san or Taichi-san, as it turns out, because we've been up since midnight. Running around Shinagawa-ku. I'm so sorry to change plans on such short notice, but, see, it took us a long time to find Takeru-kun's D3, which was stolen by Hosoda Seiki, another camper at Aomori who also happens to be one of the recipients of Oikawa's Dark Spores, whom Gennai advised us to watch out for just yesterday. I don't mean to make excuses but I hope you, um, understand, and we are really really sorry."

It didn't bode well when Koushirou, usually so neat and organized, fell into the practice of telling stories backwards. And scattering "um's" and "uh's" like scraps of bread for flustered pigeons. She tried to puzzle out the order of events, and once she understood enough to be concerned, said:

"I thought you were out of detergent."

He paused and said, "I probably don't look like much, but that's because of getting lost in Shinagawa."

She nodded, noticing for the first time how harried he looked. His skin was drained of color, his shoulders slouched, and he'd pulled on two mismatched socks. At the same time it hit her that she couldn't look much better, having just rolled out of bed. In her wrinkled green nightgown she resembled something like wasabi paste.

"Come sit down," she said, taking a seat on the couch and patting the cushion next to her. "Okay. Look. The beginning got a little lost among all your I'm sorry's but my guess is everything started when Takeru-kun's D3 was stolen. Stolen," she repeated as the idea sank in. "Why would someone do that?"

"I'm not sure just yet." Leaning forward, Koushirou kneaded the bridge of his nose. "Hosoda-san tried to open a Digital Gate with it. Whether that was the extent of his intentions, I don't know. I think he may not have planned to sabotage Takeru-kun specifically, but when Takeru-kun went off to camp, he was singled out as the weak link."

"But you got the D3 back," she asked anxiously. "You got it back, right?"

To her relief, he nodded. "Yamato-san, Daisuke-kun, and Ken-kun managed to… encourage him to hand it over," he said generously. "They're all very tired and a little beat up, but it's nothing a few days' rest won't cure. The most serious mishap was Taichi-san. He fell down a flight of cement stairs and sliced his chin open."

"He _what?"_ Sora tried to recall the last time Taichi had been injured. Not since – well, three months ago, when he was in raptures about entering his senior year, and decided to announce it to the world by free-running on the school grounds. Which was fine until he made an awkward Tarzan leap and crashed into the equipment shed. He was concussed, but kept laughing stupidly even as his classmates gathered around him in horror.

"He does it for the attention, right," Sora joked half-heartedly, dropping her head into her hand. "Geez, is he okay? Is he at the hospital? I should get dressed." She stood again.

Seizing her wrist, Koushirou shook his head. "Slow down, he just got home a few minutes ago. I talked to him on his cell and he's sleep-deprived but otherwise fine." She hesitated, and he took that as a cue to go on. "The situation's serious though. Yamato-san got some information out of Hosoda-san, but not nearly enough. Our only lead seems to be Kawada Noriko-san. Whatever Hosoda-san did allowed him to open a Gate at the camp, but I doubt he would have been able to go through, because Takeru-kun's D3 rebounded on him. I have the D3 to examine, in case anything he did to it made it faulty."

"Are you telling me," Sora said, "that we're targets in _this_ world now? After we've been barred from going to Digiworld?"

He nodded. "That's why it's so important to find out how many people we're dealing with. Hosoda-san implied that he's not the only one of the kids with Dark Spores who are after us. What their purpose is, I can't say, except that Hosoda-san seemed desperate to get to Digiworld at any cost. Maybe they're driven by frustration, and loneliness for their partners."

"Then maybe it's something we can resolve through diplomacy. If they're willing to talk to us, we can act as go-betweens, communicate with Gennai for some leniency with them."

"That's my hope, although remember, Gennai doesn't control the Digital Gates. There are elements of Digiworld even he doesn't fully understand. I wouldn't expect the Digital Sovereigns to condescend to help us either, unless there's something in it for them."

To date the only Chosen to have met the Sovereigns were the junior team, Daisuke and his friends. Although Azulongmon had given them the Digi-Core (which had passed through Gennai before coming to the Chosen), the Sovereigns mostly acted indifferent to their efforts in Digiworld.

"Plus," Koushirou went on, "leniency – after they tried to force open a Gate – it might be hard to swing that one by now. And Hosoda-san said something to Yamato-san – something along the lines of 'We hate you.'"

With a frown, Sora lifted the Styrofoam coffee cup to her mouth. Koushirou leaned more of his weight on the couch cushions, his eyelids drooping, fingers twitching like agitated birds.

"You look exhausted," she said at last. "Have you slept yet?"

"No – I went home with Yamato-san, and spent a while looking over some records and waiting for Taichi-san to leave the hospital. Then I figured I should tell you in person, to make sure I got through to you before you left for the airport. I guess I'll leave it up to you to decide how much to tell Mimi-san."

"What do you mean?" She raised her brow. "I'm not going to lie to her. Doesn't she – do you mean she doesn't know anything, you know, recent?"

"Very little. Per Taichi-san's request, I didn't tell her about what happened to him last Wednesday. He didn't want her to spend her last few days in America worrying – but I'm sure he intends to tell her when she arrives here," Koushirou hastily added at the reproachful dip of Sora's mouth. "He's not going to keep it a secret – he _can't,_ you know. As for what happened in Digiworld yesterday, and at the camp last night, the only reason she doesn't know yet is because she's on a plane, and we might as well wait to see her before we update her."

Sora's eyes narrowed further.

"I _did_ send her an email after Gennai's first message to let her know that something is going on with Digiworld, and to be on her guard." Now it was his turn to scowl at her. "Look, I only meant I'll leave it up to you to decide how much of a damper it will put on her first day here to tell her everything at once. I haven't left her _fully_ out of the loop. It was Taichi-san's request –"

"I know," Sora sighed, looking away. "This is how he wants to cope – by denying what's happening so he can bumble along like he always does. I haven't heard him mention it _once_ since Friday."

"Which _was_ only three days ago," he pointed out. "And he mentioned it, sort of, last night. I think he hasn't really grasped it. I don't know that any of us have," he added quietly.

"Gennai's explanation was less than enlightening," she muttered.

"At least he hasn't had any more trouble."

"That he's mentioned."

Koushirou shut his mouth, and slid his gaze around the room. They fell into an uncomfortable silence.

Sora's insides felt alternately hot and icy cold. It was likely enough that Taichi wouldn't tell them if he'd been digitized again. She knew that if it were her, she'd be as close-mouthed about it as possible, because denying its existence would keep fear from overpowering her. But he was the Chosen of Courage. Maybe he was better equipped than she was to deal with it.

_Or maybe he's paralyzed with fear over something he doesn't understand._

Lately she'd spent a lot of time trying to guess what Taichi was feeling. He'd been lively enough when they'd popped in on Yamato with news of Mimi's arrival. She hadn't wanted to broach the subject of Gennai's message unless he brought it up first. Now she wondered why she'd tiptoed around, waiting for him to make the first move, when he was the one with the most right to be scared.

But she wasn't used to a timid Taichi.

From her side came a tremendous snore. Koushirou was dozing off over the arm of the couch. Affection rushed through her, and also guilt that he'd had to do so much, while she'd been sleeping soundly. She gave his shoulder a gentle pat.

"Come on, you can sleep in the guest room till Mimi gets here. My mom will be working; you'll have the house to yourself."

* * *

Several hours later, Sora pulled into the parking lot of Narita. With more coffee. She took a sip to brace herself for navigating the airport grounds (part of the first level of hell). After squeezing between the elbows of a pack of confused foreigners gathered around the currency exchange, she found her way to the arrival lobby. The 2:30 throng of weary travelers was just emerging from the gate, slugging along and toting luggage that had the look of being recently proud and new, and then forced unceremoniously under cramped airplane seats.

Sora had called Jou to tell him that it would just be the two of them picking Mimi up, but apparently even that was optimistic thinking. He'd stumbled over "oh" and "I see" and "uhm, ah" until she'd finally asked if he would prefer she went by herself.

_ "Oh, I don't want to leave you alone on that ride. Although, I guess Mimi-kun will be with you for the return trip, but I don't mean to back out, I just, she'd probably rather go with you and there's no need for three people and I was only going so we'd have enough cars for all of us and, and, but if you want me to come along I mean if you think she'd want me along –"_

And so forth.

Of course he would dislike the idea of being the sole guy to meet Mimi, since he was Jou and girls gave him hives and all. But regardless of whether or not Mimi wanted to see him (which she definitely did), Sora also would have liked the chance to catch up.

So here she was, the only one out of five people awake and lucid enough to greet Mimi at the airport. She scanned the crowd for Mimi's signature hats or hairstyles, and the ground for her snazzy shoes. The arrivals and departures board hadn't listed her flight as delayed, but once her plane had hovered over Tokyo for thirty minutes before landing.

Travelers flushed out of the international arrivals gate in droves. Mimi was small, just a hair over five feet. Missing each other would be easy if she were swallowed by the crowd. She glanced farther down the terminal. Lolling by a vending machine was a girl in a cotton top and pink bolero, flipping through a copy of _Vogue._ As Sora crossed the hall, she looked up from the magazine.

Two years had passed since Mimi's last visit to Japan. She was sixteen now, seventeen in October. Sora stared for a moment, distinguishing the smooth curve of her jaw, her familiar doe brown eyes. Her hair was back to its original dark blonde, wavy and loose over her shoulders. Her body had filled out, curving fluidly from her tapering waist to her shapely legs.

When had peppy, flirty Mimi morphed into this beautiful young woman?

And yet, when she smiled and waved, it was with the same bubbly enthusiasm Sora remembered from her childhood of cowboy hats and broken compasses. Suddenly it wasn't possible to get too close to her, to hug her too tightly. Mimi replied by dropping her handbag and tossing her arms around Sora's neck.

She'd needed to see Mimi today. After everything she'd learned from Koushirou, she needed a dose of her friend's joie de vivre.

"Sora-san! How are you?" Mimi launched into chattering, linking their arms. She looked uncommonly alert for someone who had just traveled for sixteen hours. "Two years! I'm so excited, I just want to scream! _Japan!_ – Oh my gosh, you're wearing _that_ in this weather?"

She tugged at the blue-green crocheted scarf dangling from Sora's neck. "I'm so glad you're still into scarves," she giggled. "I have, like, five for you in my luggage. Maria has become quite the mad knitter and even though I told her you'd be embarrassed if she sent too many presents, I couldn't talk her out of giving you a bunch."

Sora blushed and laughed.

"Miyako-chan still loves those maxi skirts, right? I found a couple at Urban Outfitters that are just too cute! Oh, I have presents for the boys too, but they aren't skirts."

"Aw, and ever since they heard you were coming, they've been practicing wearing heels and hose, too."

Twenty minutes later, the girls towed Mimi's luggage to Sora's car. Sora flipped open the trunk of the Mitsubishi and crammed Mimi's suitcases inside.

"I'm so tired!" Mimi climbed in the passenger's seat. She leaned back and hid a yawn. Sora followed her in and turned the key in the ignition. "I hate packing to go overseas. It's even more tiring than the trip itself. There must be ten spacebags in those cases. Oh, and have I ever told you I hate Chicago O'hare? Because I do. The transfers are a _nightmare._ Next time I am so going through San Francisco. Less tiring."

"Well, you can nap on the ride back. Sorry that the AC is broken. At home we've got the guest room made up for you."

"I can't sleep now," Mimi protested. She flipped open the visor mirror and inspected her face. "You have to tell me everything. How's the university hunt going? Are Takeru-kun and Hikari-chan looking into high schools yet? Are they thinking of following you to Sanou High? Oh, but before we get into that, did you guys clean up that little mess in Digiworld?"

Sora' fingers had been drumming on the steering wheel and froze in the air mid-tap. Mimi watched her brightly, expectantly. Koushirou trusted her to say enough that Mimi wasn't left ignorant, but could still enjoy her vacation. She'd thought it over, but every way she tried to phrase the events of the last week was saying too little. Mimi was a Chosen. She deserved the whole truth. It'd be nice to have this conversation _later,_ but…

That Taichi wanted to cover things up, that Koushirou was _letting_ him, concerned her.

"It's actually," she said, "taken a bad turn."

Mimi's grin wilted. "Bad, how bad?"

Sora paused at a Stop sign."I don't know all the details. A lot went on just yesterday – Daisuke-kun's team ported in, so they could tell you more than I can. But Gennai's ordered us to come to Digiworld as little as possible, and we're supposed to be wary of the kids whom Oikawa-san implanted with Dark Spores."

"What does that mean?"

"It means we're targets," Sora said. "Look, last night, Takeru-kun's D3 was stolen."

She related what Koushirou had told her. When she finished, she glanced at Mimi, whose manicured fingers were fiddling with the strap to her handbag. She was staring straight ahead.

"What are you thinking?" Sora asked.

Mimi tucked a coil of hair behind her ear. "Mmm… that I can't believe after all these years, those kids would want revenge on us. That I'm so relieved Takeru-kun and the others are all right. That it's about time something happened in that world, it's been quiet for so long." Her lips curved in a tentative smile. "I wonder what Palmon is doing right now…"

"Me too," Sora nodded. After a moment, she added, "– Anyway, that's why there wasn't a whole retinue of admirers to escort you off the runway when you disembarked."

Mimi laughed. "Well, in that case I'll have to forgive them for slighting me. So, is that it? Am I up to speed? No other secrets you're about to divulge – Daisuke-kun's not growing his hair out like Taichi-san's or anything?"

"Oh, _please,_ no," Sora rolled her eyes. "… There is something else," she said, biting her lip.

"But?"

"You'll have to ask Taichi." Passing a string of cabs, Sora was relieved to see signs for Odaiba appear on the roadside.

"About what?" Mimi's pitch heightened. Sora winced; she couldn't blame Mimi for feeling hurt that she'd been left out of so much. "His recipe for almond blueberry meringue? When should I ask? In between soccer practices? Late at night, when his parents are asleep – or right in front of them so they can feel relieved their healthy teenage son finally has a girlfriend?"

"Mimi-chan."

"Well, you're _scaring_ me," Mimi said crossly. "For _no reason._ I'm one of you, I can't believe you're being all ominous and 'Go Through the Mines of Moria.' I know I live far away, and maybe I was never as close to you guys in the first place –"

"That's just bull," Sora protested. "You're one of my best friends."

"Okay then." Mimi continued to glower. "So why don't you feed me the juicy gossip? C'mon, that's what girlfriends are for. I don't shave my legs and relentlessly assault every pimple just for my socialite's reputation to end up shot by a lack of topics for conversation."

"Can't you be serious," Sora pouted, unhappy that they were fighting already. "Or at least less melodramatic? The only reason I won't tell you is because it's Taichi's business. I don't know how he'd want to explain it."

"I assume you already know what it is?"

Sora nodded.

"And all the other Chosen know?"

"Yeah."

"Then _why_ can't you just tell me yourself? Would Taichi-san really be that mad? Isn't it worse to let me imagine a dozen horrible scenarios all worse than what's really going on and get all worked up over it?"

"Because! Because –" Slamming her palms on the wheel, Sora brought the car to a stiff halt at a traffic light. She was finding it hard to talk around the lump in her throat. "It's not an easy thing to say, Mimi-chan."

Mimi's brow creased, and she turned away with a wounded expression. Sora started to reevaluate Koushirou's advice; considering how high-strung Mimi was naturally, maybe understating their circumstances until she was more calm would have been best.

"Fine, I'll tell you," she snapped. "But you're not going to be happy you asked."

She took a deep, steadying breath before taking the plunge. "Gennai said," she said, surprised to find her voice so feeble, "that he – Taichi's data has become warped. He's slowly breaking down, mixing dimensions… He's becoming digital."

Mimi looked at her, eyes wide and dismayed. Her mouth formed a perfect O.

* * *

"Jou, I need those tomatoes now." Yamato wiped his hands on a dish towel, standing over a bowl of olive oil and red wine vinegar. Next to him, Jou nudged over the chopped cherry tomatoes on the cutting board. Yamato tossed them into the bowl, along with some slices of cucumber and a handful of chopped onion.

"Thank you guys for doing this," Koushirou said. "I don't think anyone is up for going out to dinner like we planned."

"Not a problem," Yamato said. "Cooking always relaxes me. Even when I'm only making a salad."

Koushirou cracked a smile. "Well, it's nice you aren't making something that would heat up the kitchen on a day like this."

Since Hiroaki often worked late, Yamato's apartment was designated the site of Mimi's welcome home party, which doubled as their anniversary celebration. Earlier the boys had strung pink and white crepe paper across the ceiling. Half of it ended up ripped or in pieces, but they'd decided their hasty duct tape repair jobs added a certain manly charm to the décor.

Yamato had even put a vase of spider mums on the coffee table, with every intention of dumping them down the garbage disposal before his dad came home.

"Now what?" Jou asked, staring at the salad-dressing mix in Yamato's big plexiglass bowl.

Yamato held up a Tupperware container full of a crumbly white cheese. "Now we feta it up."

"Feta cheese?" Sora stuck her head through the front door. "Are you for real? Give it here _now!"_

Leaping to protect the cheese from Sora's grappling fingers, Yamato almost missed the delighted giggle that followed as Mimi shut the door behind her.

"Mimi-san!" Koushirou jumped out of his chair. Both he and Jou froze stiffly, wearing awkward smiles. "I'm so glad to see you!"

"We missed you," Jou added. He cleared his throat.

Sora rolled her eyes, abandoning her quest for the feta cheese. "Geez, guys. She doesn't bite."

Mimi giggled. "Maybe not, but I've been thinking of getting my incisors filed into fangs."

She strolled into the kitchen and embraced Yamato first. He tried to hug her back without touching her with sloppy cheese-and-dressing-covered hands. "Good to see you, kid," he murmured.

"You too." Mimi grapped a chunk of his hair. "Gosh, it's so _long!"_

Everyone else laughed. Yamato only growled. _Anyone and everyone…_

"I can't believe it!" Mimi flitted around, hugging Koushirou, pulling Jou down from his mountainous height so she could kiss his cheek. "You guys haven't changed at all."

"W-Well, you've changed," Jou said, one hand hiding the color splashed across his face. "N-Not that I have much to go on! I just mean you look different. In a good way! Not in a… superficial way. In a grown-up way. Though not a sketchy grown-up –"

"How was your trip?" Yamato interrupted, letting Jou sink back in relief. "Should I bother asking how many flight attendants came on to you?"

"They were all female," Mimi smirked, "so just one."

Jou's blush darkened and the rest broke out in peals of laughter.

Once the salad was finished, Yamato covered the bowl and put it in the fridge to chill until dinner. The group settled in the living room with cold drinks and bags of snack foods and talked. Topics ranged from school to the summer holiday to what bands were playing at Tokyo Dome recently. Content to let the conversation drift around him, Yamato leaned into the sofa's leather cushions, nursing a Cola.

He'd woken up at noon, still more or less beat from last night's adventure. But he made himself get out of bed for Mimi's sake, figuring activity would wake him up soon enough. It had worked for the most part, but now that he was sitting there was little to prevent him from dozing off again.

Someone's eyes were on him – Sora's. As soon as she realized he'd noticed, she turned her attention to her bag of pretzels, and laughed a little too loudly at something Jou was saying.

Heated rush to his face. Koushirou had told him that Sora knew everything that had happened last night, mere hours after they'd argued in this very room. She was probably overflowing with guilt right now.

He wasn't sure why he felt so pissed off.

"How are things going with the band, Yamato-san?" Mimi asked, drawing him out of his thoughts.

Shrugging, he frowned at the window. "Other people could tell you better than I can."

He regretted saying it a minute later. Sora jerked back as if she'd been slapped. His mood – and everyone else's – darkened considerably. "How well we're doing is largely based on our ratings on the charts," he amended. "Our agent is doing his best to promote us. We filmed a commercial this past week."

"Really?" Mimi sounded a little too interested. Her voice got a little squeaky. "Oh, that's so exciting! Did you get to meet any stars?"

"No, but there were little shrines to various bands all over the studio, I swear."

"Did they have anything for Super Junior?" Mimi almost squealed. "I am _so_ into Heechul right now!"

"No – we're not going there," Jou interrupted sternly. "Not now, not ever."

"You're such a bad sport!"

"Daisuke-kun's sister," Jou began ominously, "said my brother looks like Don-something or other –"

"Donghae, and no he doesn't."

"– and since then she's been spamming his inbox with Youtube links every day."

Mimi sighed and dropped her head on his knee. "I can't believe you're judging Super Junior based on yet another silly thing Motomiya Jun-san did."

The bell chimed. Yamato leapt up quickly, glad to move around. He opened the door to a rampaging bull.

"Mimi-chan!" With the bandage covering his chin, Taichi's trademark grin was crooked. He knocked over a can of Sprite as he raced into the living room. "Oh my God you're here!"

"Taichi-saaaan! Omigod I'm_ here!"_ Crashing into him, Mimi let him pick her up and swing her around. She let out a huge gasp and grabbed his head. "Your chin is in a cast!"

"No, it's not," he scoffed. "The sadists at the hospital sewed me up, and it was very painful. They didn't even offer me a lollipop. And the stitches are ugly, and I only want you to see pretty things so I can seduce you and keep you in my sketchy super secret underground lair, like the Phantom of the Opera."

"Aw," Mimi cooed, and kissed his forehead through his bangs. "That's so sweet. And creepy."

"I would have gone with a different shirt for the phantom," Koushirou suggested.

Taichi put Mimi down and tugged at his wrinkled Hawaiian-print T-shirt. "What exactly are you implying?"

"That you look more like Alton Brown, who probably doesn't sing as well."

"And you look like a guy who doesn't know jack about fashion_ or_ singing," Taichi growled. "Unlike _me."_

Koushirou crossed his brow. "What do you know about either of those things?"

"Lots, but far be it from me to divulge trade secrets. Ruins the magic, you know."

"This from a guy who just told us he has a 'sketchy super secret lair,'" deadpanned Sora.

He ignored her. "Speaking of Alton Brown –"

"Dinner's in the fridge," Yamato said before he could finish. "Greek salad pita sandwiches."

Taichi stared. "Wow, how… vegetarian." He crossed his arms. "Do we have a cake?"

"A cake? No…"

Making an indignant noise, Taichi tore into the kitchen and started flinging open cupboards. "That's no good! We can't have a party without a cake. I don't care if we've got feta cheese and watermelon and – hummus?" He turned the container over. "Seriously?"

Jou's lips tightened. "Some of us like hummus."

_"We need a cake."_ Stepping back, Taichi scowled at Yamato's poor, defenseless kitchenware. "And you don't have one."

Yamato shrugged, opening the fridge. "Sorry. Usually you bring the cake. We've got eggs, if you want to bake one now."

"I just woke up," Taichi whined. "Brain's too foggy to bake a cake from scratch. And what if I bleed in the batter?" He thought a minute. Yamato was amused to watch him raise his hand to his chin, then think better of it and scratch his nose instead. Taichi smacked the wall. "I'm going to go buy one!"

"I'm coming too!" Mimi said, already snapping on her sandals. "Just to make sure you buy a cute cake, and not something decorated with dinosaurs and half-chewed sugar paste Neanderthals."

"Geez, Mimi, way to kill a guy's appetite with your first grade humor," Taichi said dryly. "I was thinking along more tasteful lines, like a foot-tall sculpture of a shirtless Sacha Baron Cohen. Made of cake."

Sora wrinkled her nose. "You have to get out now."

"Makes you miss the days of half-eaten Neanderthals, doesn't it." Taichi headed outside with Mimi following. "We'll be back in an hour, tops."

"Bye-bye!" Mimi yelled cheerfully, and shut the door behind her.

The quiet that suffused the room afterward was like plunging into cool water. Flinging himself onto the vacated sofa, Yamato stretched out and stared at the crepe paper trembling above him. Sora and Jou slowly returned to their drinks, staring at each other across the table.

Koushirou held up his watch. "You all realize Taichi-san was here for less than four minutes."

The others groaned.

* * *

Hesitating in the _genkan_ of the Takaishi's apartment, Hikari slipped off her shoes and glanced toward Takeru's door. "Please, I know he's grounded, I won't take very long," she said, hoping Natsuko could tell she was determined. "I haven't seen Takeru-kun in a week, and I was so worried about him."

Running a hand through her hair in a gesture similar to the way Yamato always played with his bangs, Natsuko sighed, but she stepped aside to let Hikari in. "Alright, but you only get five minutes. I have to be strict, Hikari-chan. He did something I never would have thought him capable of, and then he lied about it." She abruptly frowned. "In fact, it's probably because I'm so concerned that he lied that I'm letting you in there at all."

Hikari ducked away meekly. She padded to Takeru's room at the end of the hall, passing framed photographs documenting Takeru growing up. Here and there Yamato appeared like a ghost, somehow seeming alone and apart. She reached Takeru's door and knocked. "Takeru-kun? It's me."

"Come in," came Takeru's voice, tired and underused.

Pushing the door open just a crack, Hikari peeked inside. Takeru's room was dark except for the open window letting in the afternoon sunlight. The ceiling fan spun languidly. Takeru lay stretched out on his bed, a leg draped over the side, an arm tucked behind his pillow.

Hikari walked over and took a seat on the edge of his bed. _Are you all right_ was the first thing she thought to ask. _I can't believe you didn't tell me_ was the next.

Rejecting both, she said, "I liked your last letter. Nakata-kun sounds like a fun person."

Takeru sighed. "I actually miss his unending blather. We should have exchanged phone numbers."

"Don't worry, how many Nakata Shigeos can there be in Sangenjaya? I'm sure you'll find each other."

She gently took hold of his wrist. "Koushirou-san says so far, the diagnostics he's run on your D3 are all in order. Maybe it'll be fine."

He didn't answer, only stared at the ceiling. Tiny glow-in-the-dark stars and planets formed an indoor galaxy, the leftovers of many a childhood game of "let's play aliens." Hikari looked at them and her throat tightened.

"Why didn't you call me?" she asked when she could no longer help it. "Why did you tell my brother not to wake me up and get my help?"

He took a deep breath that caused his chest to swell. "I'm sorry, okay. I was… embarrassed."

"I've never taken you for the proud type," she said. Then realized how ridiculous that sounded. "I take that back. I've never taken you for the _petty_ type."

"Are you mad?"

"Well, yeah, a little. I mean, I've been a Chosen just about as long as you have. You were there for me at the Dark Ocean. I would have thought you'd let me return the favor." She tucked her chin into her hand, giving his wrist a squeeze.

"You have bigger things to worry about." Takeru pulled away and sat up. He'd gotten so tall. "I didn't know about what's happening to Taichi-san until this morning. I'm… I'm sorry."

"Sorry about what?" she asked sharply. "Sorry he cut his chin? He's had worse injuries. Usually self-inflicted. Sorry he's," she struggled to spit the words out, "disappearing? Vanishing right before my eyes? Leaving my world, to become part of one that makes no promise of a future?"

Takeru met her eyes for the first time. "You don't know that for sure."

"It's what Gennai said would happen. Not in so many words, but what else could he mean by _'it's irreversible'_?"

"I doubt that. We've overcome 'impossible' odds before. This time will be no different."

"Even though the enemy we're fighting is invisible?" Hikari glared at him with enough reproach that he backed off. "I think I understand what's going on better than any of the others. Maybe better than Oniichan even. I've been there, Takeru-kun! Once you leave your world, just by walking across a street, and end up somewhere else – you know there's no ticket back home."

She felt him stand up and come around to face her. The loss of his weight caused the mattress to roll beneath her. Takeru squatted down, resting his elbows on his knees. "But you _did_ come home."

"Because you were there," she protested. "And the second time, because Miyako-san was there."

"We may have helped, but neither of us would have gotten away alive if _you_ hadn't been there."

She bit her lip. A knock on the door broke through the whirlwind of her thoughts. "Time's up, Takeru," Natsuko said, sounding somewhat apologetic. She opened the door, but didn't come inside.

"Shoot." Takeru dropped his head. "Mom and her rules."

"Guess I should go," Hikari said.

"Hikari-chan." This time he grabbed her wrist. "It's going to be fine," he said, gently. "I promise."

She hesitated. His hand slid off her arm, but lingered nearby. At last she gave him a small smile.

"Yeah, it will."

* * *

Mimi's favorite confectionery hadn't changed much since she'd last been there. The walls were candy pink and white. Decorative hot air balloons with their cargo of shiny bags of sweets hung from the ceiling. One entire wall was plastered with photos of people who'd celebrated their birthdays among the shop's shelves upon shelves of fudge and saltwater taffy and lemon drops. On display in a glass case were puffy muffins, intricately-piped cakes, and rich chocolate. Everything was sugar and lace and spend-thrifty.

Taichi's wallet drooped limp with defeat. "… So looks like we can't buy anything that costs more than ￥2000."

"Oh, please, Taichi-san." Mimi patted her handbag. "I'm totally chipping in. We can go a little more extravagant than that."

"Your wish is my command," Taichi replied with a mock bow. With a chirp, Mimi bent over the display case.

Taichi took a seat in a shockingly white wicker chair. He propped his elbow on the table and watched Mimi as she alternated between inspecting the cakes and chatting with the cashier. At least one of the original Chosen was enjoying their anniversary.

He'd been stunned by the subdued atmosphere in Yamato's house. Beforehand, he'd made up his mind to be as outgoing and silly as possible, so that nothing he did would bring down the others' spirits. But apparently they didn't need his help in that department. Everyone looked like they'd rather just be home. At the same time, none of them wanted to be away from each other today.

He'd needed time to think, to come up with a plan that would lift whatever fog was clouding their happiness. Cake was a convenient excuse. Not to mention tasty.

"Taichi-san!" Mimi cried, waving him over. "What do you think of this?" she asked, pointing to a white-iced cake on a stand. "Red velvet cheesecake. Sounds cool and refreshing, doesn't it?"

Not just cheesecake. Not just red velvet.. _Red velvet cheesecake._ Leave it to Mimi to describe such a tower of decadence as "refreshing."

"How much?"

"Is money all you can think about?" She stuck out her lower lip, crossing her arms. "It's not pricey. Not when you compare. I know how to shop, Taichi-san."

"Never said you didn't." He looked at the cake, trimmed with such careful precision, on a silver stand waiting to be cut into pieces. All that hard work, only to end up yesterday's stale crumbs. That cake probably thought quite a lot of itself, right up until the moment a diner pierced it with a fork.

He had to get out of here. He was starting to identify with a _cake._

"Red velvet cheesecake it is," he said, peeling a few bills out of his wallet. Mimi opened her bag and added some cash of her own. The cashier packed the cake in a powder blue box and handed it to Taichi.

"Hold on a minute," the cashier said. "Guess what. You're our 50th customer of the day, which means you win our sweepstakes."

"Really?" Taichi and Mimi exchanged a look of surprise. "What do we win?"

"Keiko-chan!" the cashier called. "Bring out the prize – we've got our 50th!"

A moment later, a young girl passed behind the counter. She wore her mouse brown hair in a low ponytail, and looked sidelong at the customers with shy eyes. She handed Taichi and Mimi a pair of coupons and said in a small voice:

"Congratulations on winning our sweepstakes. These coupons entitle you to 50% off any cake worth ￥4000 or more. I hope you enjoy our cakes and continue to shop at Lulu's Confections."

Taichi took the coupon absently, captivated by the girl's face. The tremble in her lower lip, the low brow too heavy for her delicate face reminded him of someone. He searched his mind for her name. Keiko – Keiko from somewhere –

_I've always wanted to open a bakery._

"Keiko-chan?" he exclaimed. "You can't be Kurata Keiko-chan?"

Her dark eyes widened. "N-No, you've got me mixed up with someone else."

"I don't think so." He grinned to reassure her. "Remember me? Yagami Taichi? We met a couple times a few years ago."

"You're th-thinking of someone else!" the girl insisted, backing against the far wall and knocking into a jar of M&Ms. "I've n-never met you! Please leave!" she shrieked, and darted into the adjacent room.

"Keiko-chan!" The cashier stared after her, amazed. "I can't understand it. She's a timid girl, but I've never seen her like this. I'm very sorry." He bowed deeply, patting his apron.

Taichi shook his head. "Don't worry. I'm sure she has her reasons." He gestured to Mimi. "Come on," he said, and walked outside without checking to see if she'd followed.

Mimi caught up with him quickly. "Was that one of the Spore Children?" she asked.

He was impressed that she'd remembered. "Yeah, I'm sure of it. Kurata Keiko-chan, that really shy little girl with the eyebrows."

"Why would she run away like that?" Mimi wondered. "We never did anything to scare her."

"Maybe she's in on whatever plan Hosoda Seiki was part of."

"You think?" Mimi said, doubtful. "She doesn't seem the type for conspiracies. I mean, back then she'd barely talk to anyone."

"But she reacted so strongly. Like she's hiding something."

Mimi didn't reply for a moment. He didn't notice that she'd fallen back a few steps, until she spoke again with a sudden fire:

"If you really think she was part of it all, why are you just walking away, instead of going back in there and asked her about it?"

Startled, he opened and closed his mouth without a word falling out. Mimi stared at him in challenge, slender hands poised on her hips. _Well?_ her scowl seemed to say. _Where's the leader people say you are, Taichi-san?_

Where, indeed?

Up until now, hadn't he left the investigating to Koushirou, and the younger kids – while he constantly focused on what was happening to him, what that meant for his future? When had he ever willingly refrained from being in the center of the action? If he'd been in Digiworld to hear Hawkmon's report, he would never have let that bird fly away while they still had more questions than answers.

_You are their leader. Act like it._

He steeled himself, then pushed the cake box into Mimi's arms. Through the window, he could see Keiko busing tables. Now and then her hands quivered. She never once glanced up from her work.

Marching back inside, Taichi strode right up to her, yanked out a chair, and with a flourish of his arm gestured for her to take a seat.

After a moment's pause in which she looked about ready to either faint or dash madly for the door, she sat as if someone were physically pushing her down.

"Keiko-chan," Taichi said. "I'm not here to scare you or to hurt you. I have no reason to hate you or the other children with Spores. But if you know anything about what happened last night at Shiroike campgrounds, you've gotta tell me. Before it gets worse for everyone."

Her shoulders began to shake. Maybe he came on too harsh. Leaning across the table, he made to touch her hand, but she snatched it away and pinched her lips tighter. Mimi, hovering nearby, came up and took the chair next to Keiko. She wore a gentle smile.

"Keiko-chan," she started in, "please talk to us. If there's anything we can do to help you, we'll do it."

"There's no need for us to be at war," Taichi added, grateful that some of the tremor had gone out of Keiko's limbs with sweet, pretty Mimi now beside her. "Give us a chance, I'm sure we can figure something out."

Her fists curled in her ruffly apron. "N-no, we can't. It's too late. It's already started." "What's started?"

"Chaos," she answered with a sniffle.

"Sweetie, chaos is the sales at the Palisades Mall on Black Friday," Mimi said. "You're gonna have to be more specific."

"I don't _know,_ okay? I really don't know anything. The past few years were hard, and we just wanted to see the Digimon again. We just thought, if we could take a look at a working digivice, we might be able to figure out what's wrong with ours, but then Nori-chan said –"

Taichi jerked upright. "Kawada Noriko."

"Yeah, she's kind of our leader."

"So Kawada said what?"

"She was worried that our digivices won't work for a different reason. That our Spores might still be alive."

"The Spores are still _alive?"_ Taichi stood up with his hands splayed on the tabletop. With him looming over her, Keiko visibly shrank back into Mimi and resumed trembling.

"I d-d-don't kn-know but she th-thought… m-maybe."

_"All_ of them?"

"I don't _know!"_

"Okay," he said, glancing nervously at the handful of other customers in the store. He bent into a squat and let his arms dangle limply between his legs. "Okay. Just calm down. It's alright if you don't know. Have you heard anything else?"

"Noooo," she wailed, and now tears were pouring down her cheeks. Mimi put her arms around Keiko's shoulders. "I d-don't even know that much! _Nori-chan's_ the smart one! I just t-try to keep to my-myself! Why do these things always happen to m-me?"

She started bawling for real and suddenly the manager was there, a menacing twitch in his moustache. Mimi gave him a bewildered look. Taichi grinned nervously. "We were just leaving."

The moustache tilted further. "Better, or I'm calling the police."

"I didn't mean to –" Taichi pressed the heel of his palm to his forehead. "I wasn't trying to make her cry."

"Let's just go," said Mimi, the cake in one hand and tugging Taichi's belt loop with the other.

"Right. Sorry. Bye. Keiko-chan." He stared at her helplessly. "Keiko-chan, I'm… sorry.

"Geez," he exclaimed after they'd zipped through the door, around the corner and down the block. "Was I really that hard on her?"

Hugging his arm, Mimi's sigh was one of affectionate exasperation. "Taichi-san, you're a high school senior. You tower over her, you're a soccer player, and you're a boy."

"And that makes her cry?"

"If it makes you feel any better, the clash of colors on that shirt of yours makes _me_ want to cry."

"Hey, show some respect, in some countries neon orange on hot pink is super chic."

"So the Spores might still be working," Mimi murmured. "What does that mean?"

Taichi clenched his jaw. "Could mean a lot of things. Maybe Myotismon's still out there. Or someone else's figured out how to activate them. Or they were never really defunct at all."

_I've always wanted to open a bakery._

It didn't sit well with him, making a little girl cry. Keiko was around Hikari's age. He might be all the things Mimi listed, but he also liked kids, and did his best to tone the bravado down for them as much as he could. He felt horrible. But he _had_ to ask her those questions, even if it was hard for her to talk about. And if the Spores really were active… Keiko and those kids would be the ones hurt the most.

_I love the smell of fresh bread._

* * *

**Chapter Notes:**

1.] _2000:_ A little over $20.

2.] Palisades (Center): A famous mall in New York.

_Thanks for reading! Chapter Eight will be out soon._


	8. Opening Calls

_A/N: Hi kits! I clearly didn't manage to put this up before I left for Japan. Japan is lovely, but my Internet access here is very much limited to when I have extra time after classes, which so far has not been much. But the lack of Internet access has actually improved my discipline when it comes to writing… so maybe that'll be a good thing for you! (But it's crazy to try to read fanfiction in the uni library, never knowing how well your neighbor reads English, so I'm feeling very deprived right now : I love you fanficcers! I do I do!)_

_Thank you all for your lovely reviews last chapter. There are a couple of you to whom I haven't replied back, or to whom I owe messages. I hope no one's too angry ^^; this is also the result of no fabulous Internets when I want them. But sincerely, thanks for your comments. I've definitely taken them to heart. And thanks to those of you who wished me a good trip! That was so sweet~ Here, have some virtual mochi, om nom nom._

_We're diving into a new arc now, so I won't put it off any longer. Enjoy!_

* * *

**Chapter Eight**

**Opening Calls**

_"It was good that God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else they'd have no heart to start at all."  
- Cormac McCarthy,_ All the Pretty Horses

** 08.09.2006**

** WED**

A week passed quietly, and in the interim the Chosen enjoyed summer vacation as it ought to be enjoyed. Sports practices resumed in the morning hours, after it became clear that the deadly midday heat wouldn't abate for some time. The afternoon hours were whiled away at the beach, in the air conditioned malls, in the movie theater. By the end of the long, eventless week, Iori was bored enough to give in to Miyako's invitation to watch all six hours of _Pride and Prejudice._ He found himself on the floor, squished between Miyako and Hikari, the pretzel bowl lamentably out of reach. Five other girls rolled themselves out in a human horseshoe. Iori thought a couple of them might be Miyako's sisters, Momoe and Chizuru, not that it mattered much. He was still surrounded on all sides by fluffy-slippered, twittering teenage girls, who each seemed to believe he was her personal squish-toy.

"You didn't tell me it was a slumber party," he growled in Miyako's ear, once someone suggested they paint each other's nails.

_"Pajama_ party," Miyako corrected him, with a glint of mischief in her eye. "I didn't think it was necessary. I mean, what girl watches this movie without a whole flock to help ogle the dashing Mr. Darcy?"

Iori, not being much for pajama parties, and not one of the oglers either, snagged his first chance to squirm away and call for help. Figuring nothing in the world could persuade Daisuke to pass up indoor soccer to sit through the remaining five and a quarter hours of _Pride and Prejudice,_ he punched Takeru's number into the phone. Takeru conveniently lived in the same building, and had also read the book. (Although he'd made Iori swear not to reveal that to anyone until he was safely graduated and studying overseas.)

Takeru picked up after the first ring. "Hello," he said, as if his room were filled with a dreary rain cloud. "What's up?"

"Takeru-san, I need help," Iori hissed. His palm felt clammy on the smooth surface of the phone. "I'm drowning in estrogen."

There was a short pause, and then Takeru said, in his best It's-not-pity manner, "Don't worry, Iori-kun, your voice will change eventually."

"No," Iori rolled his eyes. (His voice was already changing, if the frequent cracks and squawks were anything to go by.) "I'm surrounded by _girls._ Which would be fine if they didn't think I'm squishy."

"… Squishy."

"Their word, not mine." He stole a glance into the living room. To his horror, the bottles of nail polish were not only out, but in an array of brilliant neon colors. With _sparkles._ "You have to come rescue me. If a guy their age joins us, they'll grow up a little. Or, at the very least, lose interest in me."

"I think you overestimate my aptitude in Studliness 101."

"Your voice _has_ changed," Iori pointed out, "which automatically makes you a stud when you're in junior high."

"Now I'm scared to go up there."

"Takeru-san!"

Takeru laughed brightly, which is rude and offensive when someone gives you a desperate plea for help, Iori thought. Then he said:

"Even if I didn't find the prospect of being the only 'stud' amid a swarm of girls extremely terrifying, I wouldn't be able to go. My mom's reinstated my phone privileges, but I'm still confined to the apartment."

"Can't you bargain with her?" Iori begged. "Say you'll ground yourself for another two days, to make up for this one?"

"No way. Sorry, but I'm too desperate to get out of here. I'm not sure I can remember what it's like to feel the sun on my skin, to tumble down a grassy hill, to frolic with the deer among wildflowers, to observe the tranquility of nature and get in touch with my inner existentialist –"

"Yes, because you used to do all that so often," Iori scoffed, glaring sternly at a pepper shaker in the shape of an apron-wearing milk cow, complete with udders.

"My imprisonment has enlightened me to the fact that these are all important things I need to do, so I can die without regrets," was Takeru's casual reply. "Besides, I want to butter Mom up so she'll let me out for the party next week. That means I can't ask for any favors beforehand."

"Okay, okay." Iori reluctantly hung up the phone, admitting defeat. For a moment he thought morosely of calling someone else. But it had been hard enough to admit to Takeru that he'd been sucked into Miyako's scheme, knowing full well it involved _Pride and Prejudice._ He couldn't bring himself to betray his honor to anyone else.

Miyako and Hikari waltzed into the kitchen, arms linked. "Were you calling for back-up?" Miyako asked with a sly smirk.

Iori was glad he didn't blush easily. "You must have something better to do than eavesdrop on my phone calls," he said.

Miyako gave an ominous chuckle that said she did indeed have something better to do and it was going to put Iori through even more agony. She disappeared into the pantry and Hikari took a seat in a chair next to Iori, her turquoise pajama pants bunched above her knees. She looked at Iori kindly (Iori remembered how he'd always thought Hikari was fantastic, like a living goddess) and said, "Did you try to get in touch with Takeru-kun? I invited him along too, but he said his mom won't relax the rules. It's too bad, he's read the book three times."

Iori filed that away for future use. Blackmail always worked to win a favor or two.

In the end, he managed to duck out after an early dinner of instant ramen and donuts (purchased from the I-Mart with Miyako's 30% discount). The movie actually wasn't that bad; the characters did more than sit around primly and talk about embroidery. Part of him almost regretted that by leaving early, he wouldn't find out if Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy ever figured out how to marry each other without offending all their relatives. (This was only a small, disturbingly sentimental part likely brought on by over-eating French cream donuts.)

Seven o'clock found him biking to the drugstore to pick up his grandfather's preferred pain killer medication. The sun had dipped low among the city's patchwork of buildings, dyeing the sky rich violets and rose petal pinks. He parked in front of the store and locked his bike, and when he turned around he found himself facing Kawada Noriko.

He almost jumped to see her there so suddenly. Since Hawkmon had mentioned the Dark Spores, part of him had been expecting her to show up at his door, the same moon-faced little girl with the wet eyes and bony, fidgety fingers. The girl paused in locking her bike next to him barely resembled that old memory. Somehow, in the last few years, she'd become pretty.

– More accurately, it wasn't that she'd become pretty so much as she was no longer ugly. There was nothing especially lovely about her face, no trace of classic beauty. She was still as skinny and figureless as a twig, her eyes too small, her lips too pale.

But she'd grown her hair out. Which might not have struck him if she'd been any other girl, except that the old Noriko hadn't liked her hair and wanted it cut short so no one could comment on how unmanageable it was. Now it tumbled down her shoulders to the maximum length allowed by her school, and she'd clipped it with a thin red barrette.

Iori didn't know much about girls, but he'd witnessed how traumatic it had been for Miyako to go to her first day of school with glasses, and how excited she'd been when her parents decided she was old enough for contact lenses. He'd personally never thought she looked ugly with her glasses, but it used to bother him when Daisuke would tease her about their size or strength. Even if she teased him right back, Iori knew at least a part of her was sensitive enough about her glasses to take the jokes seriously.

So he knew in a glance that Noriko had changed. Although the panic that flashed across her face when she recognized him fit the old Noriko well enough.

Without exchanging a word, they walked into the drug store together. For all appearances, they looked like two school friends enjoying the summer break. Except that Noriko kept her head bowed, and Iori staunchly didn't glance at her until they were well into the aisles and out of earshot.

He didn't know what to make of her, walking beside him with timid steps, clenching her fist around the hem of her shirt. Why had she decided to stay with him, rather than dash away? And if she wanted to talk, why was she mutely waiting for him to make the first move?

"What are you doing here?" he asked. She lived in Bunkyou Ward, why was she in Odaiba?

That made her lift her head in shock. "… Visiting a friend. I need sunscreen so we can play outside," she said, finding her voice.

Iori made his way towards the racks of sunscreen with swift, purposeful steps. She gave a puzzled kind of gurgle and scurried after him. He picked up a slender yellow bottle and held it up for her to see.

"It's cheap. SPF 25. Will this do?"

"I – uh – yes…"

With a curt nod, he pivoted on his heel. On the way to the register, he grabbed his grandfather's pain killers off a shelf. He dumped both on the counter and the cashier began to ring them up.

"Wait –" Noriko caught up to him, waving her hands furiously, and tried to snatch the bottle of sunscreen. "I don't need you to pay –"

"I'm going to," he said, already unclasping his wallet.

She took a few more stabs at protesting, and finally gave in as he carefully ensured that their purchases would end up in different bags. He handed one to her without waiting to make sure she took it, which she did, but not without rolling her eyes.

"Your hair is different," she said she said in lieu of "thank you."

He tipped his mouth. "You should talk."

"Your part is on the side now. It suits you."

"… Thanks." He parted it on the side because he'd started growing it longer than was advisable for a kendo student, and he thought it looked more neat and orderly.

"How's Takaishi-san?" Noriko asked as they ambled outside.

Iori laid a wary eye on her. "Better. Our expert returned his D3 to him and said that, fortunately, he doesn't think it came to any harm in the scuffle. Takeru-san was _extremely_ relieved."

While he spoke, Noriko colored darkly and halted next to a vending machine. He let the words hang in the air for a tense moment. "You weren't thinking about what happened on Tuesday."

Embarrassed, she shook her head. "Takaishi-san was kind to me way back when. And he was always with you, so that's how I remember him."

"Ah." Iori hadn't forgotten that it was his Jogress partner whose D3 had been stolen. Hadn't forgotten or forgiven. "So you repay kindness by plotting an ambush and stealing?"

"I wasn't involved in that," Noriko protested.

"Hosoda-san said you knew."

"Well, I – yes. I knew, I just couldn't do anything about it!"

"You could have contacted us," Iori hissed. "We could have taken care of the situation before things went so far, and we would have left your name out of it."

"Stop assuming that I'm your ally," she said bitterly. "I don't agree with what Seiki-kun did, but I'm not siding with you either."

"Then what are you?" He folded his arms and narrowed his eyes, a stance which he thought looked imperious. For a junior high schooler, he pulled it off well. Noriko was cowed.

"In between," she sighed, wiping a hand over her forehead. She glanced curiously at the sky. "Was that rain I felt?"

"I heard that a typhoon is coming," Iori said, oddly relieved to return to a less volatile topic. He too tilted his head back to peer at the now cloud-heavy sky.

Noriko shrugged, and made her way over to her bike. "It's a good thing, I guess. We've had such hot weather lately that there've been droughts in the countryside."

Realizing he couldn't let her off the hook so easily, not when she'd been about to reveal something big – he was _sure – _Iori grabbed hold of her bike seat. She gave a start and glared at him.

"I need to know what you know," he said, blunt and to the point. _Always the best approach in the kendo arena._ "Kurata Keiko-san said you think the Spores are reactivating."

"_Think_ being the key word."

"And she told us that 'chaos' has started. But she couldn't give us any details." When Noriko remained stubbornly silent, he persisted. "What kind of chaos? Is it a Digimon, or a human? This world or another? Why did it contact you before us?"

"Keiko-chan was afraid of Yagami-san. He was loud. That's what she told me."

"He's always loud, but he wouldn't eat her. At least not on a full stomach."

"I can't answer any of those questions," Noriko swung a leg over her bike, "because I don't know the answers. Except, I can tell you that you're on the complete wrong track. She wasn't using 'chaos' metaphorically."

She hooked her arms over the handles, peering at the pavement. Iori relaxed his grip, annoyed that he couldn't force more out of her, and doubly annoyed that he knew he _could_ if he didn't care so much about her opinion of him. Slowly she raised her chin, and turned her troubled gaze on the illuminated city streets.

"We used to have one mind," she said, startling him. "Seiki-kun and me, and the others. Maybe we idealized our situation, but even then, being united in silly optimism was better than the rift between us now."

"There's nothing wrong with optimism," Iori said.

Her lips curved in a resigned smile. "Except when optimism leads to ignorance, and you end up losing more than you would have by leaving things as they were."

"What are you going to lose?" he asked, bewildered, but she leaned on the pedals and coasted down the sidewalk. Almost as an afterthought, she raised an arm and waved at him at the crosswalk. Her shirt rode up and he caught a glimpse of her smooth stomach.

"Thanks for the sunscreen," she called, which troubled him more than if she'd sped off without saying anything, because it left him wondering, if he'd only found the right thing to say –

* * *

** 08.10.2006**

** THURS**

"Why haven't we tried to contact Kawada-san over this past week?" Iori demanded, pointedly ignoring the tray of candies inching towards him by way of Daisuke's big toe. The toe peeped through a hole in a very dirty, over-bright orange-and-yellow sock, which had induced Miyako to denounce it in disgust as soon as she walked into the room. Even more uncanny was the fact that Daisuke's other sock was not only hole-free, but also navy blue.

"Stop thinking about your socks," Hikari said, causing Daisuke to fold his legs beneath him. "He was starting to go cross-eyed staring at them," she explained to Takeru, who was listening in on his cell phone from his apartment on the floor below. A ludicrous arrangement, but nothing could be done about it as long as his mother remained his strict jail warden with the keys tucked into her shirt.

Daisuke sat on his knees for almost three minutes before once again sprawling out languidly on the carpet.

"I don't know, I thought we were going to, especially after Taichi-san and Mimi-san talked to that Kurata girl."

Oh, they were discussing Iori's question. That was probably a more important topic than his mismatched socks. Daisuke found that pinching his lips in a scowl created a pleasing effect of contemplation.

"Whose job was it?" he asked.

"Daisuke-kun just asked, 'Whose job was it?'" Hikari echoed to Takeru.

He cast a glance around the room. Every face looked somewhat guilty. This was not acceptable team morale, he thought grimly.

"I don't think it was ever officially decided whose job it was," Miyako said, squirming.

"You mean we all assumed either Taichi-san or Koushirou-san would do it," Iori said.

Blushing for some reason, Miyako rolled her shoulders. "Well, they tend to call the shots, don't they? That we were waiting for their word isn't unusual or anything."

The interesting thing about being leader of the junior team, Daisuke thought, was coping with a variety of personalities. There were cool people who liked soccer and just plain weird people who liked basketball and poetry. There were those who loved herbal tea and wouldn't touch coffee even if it came disguised as liquid fiber. There were those who stressed over the minutest details, and then there were those who didn't give a crap. Daisuke himself was the only one who adequately filled the last category. But, he figured, it was probably that same lackadaisical attitude which made him so skilled at his job. Miyako could screech all she wanted, and Iori could contort his face into grimaces from "mildly disapproving" to "about to hurl at the injustice of it all" but Daisuke would not mind. Hikari was a notorious back-seat driver, and Takeru couldn't accept a plan unless they ironed out every last particular in a topical outline, and Ken was broody and Ken-like and then not broody but still Ken-like and his brain was very very hard to keep up with. But Daisuke, Daisuke serenely did not mind.

He'd perfected the art of the Lazy Cat in a Small Patch of Sunlight, which sounded very Zen, and he called it Sun-kats, like the convenience store, and many people could improve their lives if they'd attempt the Sun-kats method, including quite a few of those in the room with him right now.

"It's still weird that none of _us_ followed up with them when we didn't hear anything about the Spores for an entire week, though. You didn't hear anything, did you?"

When the silence lasted more than a couple seconds, Daisuke figured the question was directed at him. "No, I didn't," he replied, and when Iori turned back to the group, he congratulated himself on another excellent feint.

"Did you hear anything? – I didn't think so – Takeru-kun says he didn't hear anything in the time since he got his phone privileges back." Hikari toyed with her frog-shaped cell phone charm. "At the very least, I should have talked to my brother about Kawada-san. I mentioned her to him a couple times, but once he was rushing out to soccer practice, and both times he just said, 'Yeah, I'll get to it.'"

"It sucks that soccer practice resumed just in time for the first typhoon of the month," Daisuke griped, and was ignored.

"Maybe they didn't know what to say?" Miyako suggested half-heartedly. "Like, Kurata-san cried a lot, and now it turns out she thought Taichi-san was scary, so maybe they were worried about traumatizing more little girls?"

"If anything, they might have been concerned with traumatizing Taichi-san," Ken said, speaking for the first time, which meant he'd finally recovered from his bus ride, which had been unusually bumpy and the bus driver unusually foul-mouthed. "I mean, by a show of hands, how many of us think Taichi-san is scary enough to paralyze a kid with fear?"

"To a shy middle school girl, all older boys might be scary," Hikari pointed out.

"Yes, but – I'm sorry, but his _ears."_ Miyako tried to stifle her laughter. "They are enormous."

"They aren't that big," Hikari objected, with pinched lips. "They just stick out a lot."

"Hikari-san is right," Ken said (Daisuke assumed he didn't mean about Taichi's ears). "And I'm allowing for Kurata-san being shy around boys, or even strangers in general. But there may be another reason for her reticence – whatever she and Kawada-san have to tell could bring the sledgehammer down on us all. And Taichi-san is already cracking under the pressure, so the senior team is hesitant to rush into something big through contacting Kawada-san. Maybe knowing the details would relieve some of that weight, I don't know, but it could also add to it, and the senior team is clearly afraid of having to fight while also piecing together their leader."

"Ken-kun just said that –"

"Geez, can't you put him on speaker phone?" Daisuke complained, yanking the phone from Hikari's hands and placing it in the center of the group. "Take-dork, you got that, didn't you? Almost? Good enough."

"Speak loudly," Hikari gave a pitiful whine. "He's taking notes."

_Figures._ "As usual, Ken's opinion and mine are 100% different," Daisuke said, finding it no trouble at all to be heard. "Look, what Gennai said definitely wouldn't give anyone the urge to start tap-dancing like they're wearing magic slippers," he went on. "And I'm sure it's got Taichi-san pretty torn up inside. But he's never fallen short of being a great leader and I don't even see any signs that he can't deal. When Agumon was captured, yeah, he lost it for a while, but he got it back, didn't he, and because he didn't let us down, we didn't let him down either."

"You don't see any signs because you don't want to see them," Ken began, but Daisuke didn't let him go on.

"I'm not non-observant, man," he grouched, wondering why Ken always picked the most inopportune times to challenge him. "I've seen him more than you lately, too. A week ago he was stupendous in getting us organized to rescue Takeru's D3. He even squeezed a little bit of info out of Kurata. And since then, he's played soccer, raced my sister to the beach, gotten drunk, gone to karaoke while drunk – he's been normal, right?"

He looked at Hikari for support. She wrinkled her nose and gave a hesitant nod. "Yeah, he's done all those things. _All_ of them," she repeated with a longsuffering sigh.

Stretched out on the floor, Ken regarded Daisuke with an inscrutable look. Daisuke suddenly felt like he were being surveyed by a particularly nitpicky talent scout.

"I'm not denying that he's dealing with it," Ken said, patiently. "Maybe he's dealing just fine. But dealing with something means there's got to be something hurting you first, and when that hurt starts to creep up all at once, people who are really paying attention can tell. For example," he said before Daisuke could cut him off, "Hikari-san – you said you mentioned Kawada-san to him twice, briefly. May I ask why only two times?"

There was a pregnant pause in which all eyes fixed on Hikari. She shifted, sliding her legs out from beneath her. "Because he would get so agitated," she admitted, "like I was reminding him about some important exam coming up that he wasn't confident he could pass."

Satisfied, Ken turned back to Daisuke. "I know fear," he said in a low voice. "There's nothing like it for bringing out a different side of your personality."

Now that the conversation had been effectively derailed, Iori tried to nudge the Chosen back to the topic of Noriko. Daisuke lapsed into silence, which no one could fail to notice. From time to time he'd catch Ken glancing at him, and then he'd scowl, but Ken stubbornly wouldn't even flinch.

It didn't escape Daisuke that Hikari, too, become quieter than usual for the rest of the afternoon. Later, when Ken rejected his invitation to sleep over on account of morning soccer practice, Daisuke and Hikari walked home together, each in their private brooding bubble.

He felt like he should say something. She was, after all, not only his teammate, but an old and important friend. He hated to see her with her pretty eyes downcast, mouth curved in not quite a frown, but certainly not a smile.

So he said, "That Ken. He loves to theorize. He and Koushirou get together just to exchange bizarre theories over coffee. I think that between the two of them, they've already solved the mystery of the human psyche."

Hikari reached up and smoothed a lock of hair. "You know what?" she said after a moment. "I think Ken-kun is wrong on this one. I mean, his theory makes sense, except that he assumes that my brother's team is dysfunctional, which it's not."

_My brother's team_ echoed with delight through Daisuke's head. He remembered how when he and Miyako and Iori had first set out as a Chosen, old-timers Hikari and Takeru had been a constant source of knowledge for them. And yet it had taken some time before they'd coalesced with their new team mates. For a while they'd stood off to the side, sharing inside jokes, sometimes just through a look or a laugh. During that period, Daisuke had wondered if the two of them didn't think the new team was less exciting or useful than the original team.

And maybe they had had some of those thoughts now and then. He didn't blame them for feeling nostalgic. He couldn't imagine leaving his current team mates to start a third team of Chosen, not after everything they'd been through together. And they had come around as they all naturally came to see eye to eye. He liked to think that both of them were happy with their positions now, that the early stages of their first adventure had been just that, early, and that bashfulness had given way to a strong bond of friendship.

And so – when Hikari referred to her brother's team, without including herself as part of it, Daisuke was happy. Not that he'd ever resent it if she or Takeru wanted to spend time with just the original Chosen. They had that right. But still, he was happy.

"Their lives are very busy," Hikari went on, "but they care about each other. And they understand each other, which is chief. And the number one thing they all understand is that the team, the twelve of us, comes first no matter what."

She took hold of Daisuke's elbow. "Daisuke-kun, you won't get mad at me for saying something about Ken-kun, will you? You know I like him a lot."

"Sure," he said automatically, hoping whatever she had to say wasn't too incriminating.

"I like Ken-kun," she repeated. "He's smart and probably more perceptive than the rest of us. But he's… been exposed to a lot of evil in his life. He doesn't have many happy memories. So when he creates his theories, he's coming from the viewpoint of someone who's learned not to expect a whole lot from people."

She paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts, and then added, "I think we are stronger than he gives us credit for – all of us, not just my brother – because we know we can count on each other for support."

"I'm with you," Daisuke said, a grin splitting across his face. "It's like that wise old man said, 'Don't be afraid of being afraid.'"

"You mean 'the only thing we have to fear is fear itself'?"

"The point is, all that gibberish about fear changing people – sure, he's right, he's _Ken,_ but the thing is, you can rise above your fear. You can crush it."

"Exactly." Hikari beamed. "You don't have to let fear get the best of you."

"And Taichi-senpai is the last person who'd lose heart at a time like this," Daisuke said, chest swelling. Since elementary school, he'd known Yagami Taichi was a man worth modeling. It wasn't just that he'd been his elementary school soccer team's star, or that he'd wormed his way into the regulars by his fifth year, or that he had many friends, or that he always seemed sure of himself. It was that he'd never let Daisuke down, even just in his heart of hearts, where he knew he most likely expected too much of this boy who was only three years his senior.

Any shred of doubt left darkening his view of the future fell to the wayside; any seeds planted by Ken's warning were uprooted. _We are the Chosen Children,_ he thought with pride. _Chosen for a purpose, and we'll see it through, together._

* * *

But fear is a cunning enemy. It sets up snares behind the lines, raids your reserves from the shadows, leaving traces of its misdeeds in the dust so that you know it's there, waiting, beyond where you can see. It does not dismantle your bridges, and your trenches are left intact, so you feel protected, so you underestimate the enemy. It waits, patiently, until you relax your guard and are at your most vulnerable.

And then comes the day when the enemy has amassed enough arms to assault from every corner, charging in like the god in the thunderclouds, with no objective except to shut you down. There are casualties. Atrocities, atrocities too hideous to speak of; the stink never washes out. Fear never troubles itself with the aftermath of the havoc it wrecks.

Once you are touched by fear, you will see yourself changed. Maybe you will go mad.

* * *

** 08.11.2006**

** FRI**

The swollen belly of the sky had reached a shade of deep violet-gray, like a shriveled old plum, and ever since then the wind lashing against the windows had grown more and more virulent. Taichi settled himself on the couch, a baseball game flickering on the television, and watched the pattering rain fall in fat drops. Against the backdrop of churning darkness, they looked like suicidal stars that had been stripped of their inner light.

Yuuko yawned, tugging the blanket wrapped around her shoulders closer as she headed into her bedroom. It was hard to believe that only a day before, the temperature had soared so high that the air conditioner had collapsed from overuse.

Something about the fluctuating weather disturbed Taichi. It wasn't that typhoons were anything unusual this time of year. And he certainly didn't think there was anything malicious about this particular storm. Taichi considered himself the practical type. He left the superstitions up to his sister, who saw signs in everything from a spilt tea cup to the rare night when not a single cricket chirped.

It was one o'clock on Friday morning, August 11th. Thursday blustered by in a whirlwind: after breakfast he'd rushed to the soccer field, and practiced shooting and formations until lunchtime. Then a goalkeeper from a rival school had talked him into coming down to what was known as Graffiti Bridge, because high school seniors kept up an annual tradition of vandalizing it. There had once been a slender trickle of a river under the bridge which had since dried up. Now it was the ideal place for rival, but equally soccer-obsessed teenagers to hold an impromptu gave of shoot-and-parry.

Well-known as Sanou High's ace striker, Taichi took care of the shooting. The GK was a phenomenal opponent, and more than once Taichi paused to admire his quick, calculated saves. He wished they could have played on the same team. They would have been formidable.

On one side of the bridge, some romantic from last year's graduating class had spray painted, _"__One for sorrow, two for joy."_ Standing under that bold blue scrawl, Taichi had suddenly remembered the last time he'd practiced there man-to-man with someone. Déjà vu always brought along the discomforting sensation of being outside of himself, washed in a memory while his body switched to autopilot.

When he was twelve, newly inducted into junior high, his first real trial turned out to be coping with the return to the bottom rung on the soccer team. As a first year, his were menial tasks – rubbing down soccer balls, setting up obstacle courses, dislodging chunks of packed dirt and pebbles from the other players' cleats. He'd gotten used to the freedom brought by seniority and skill in elementary school, and its sudden absence was a hard pill to swallow.

The coach would tell him, "It's just the one year. If you're really as good as you say, then you'll earn back your position in no time. Don't look at your period as a novice as wasteful or worthless. On the bench, you can observe the more experienced players – learn from them now, and it'll make the transition from rookie to regular that much easier."

Taichi now thought that, if he'd never been swept off to Digiworld, if he'd never naively become the leader of his ragtag team, then he probably wouldn't have appreciated his coach's advice. But the few big successes and the many failures brought about by his own ignorance in Digiworld had taught him the importance of learning from example. So when other rookies quit the team because of lack of things to do, he kept going, kept watch, and in the end learned quite a lot without ever playing in a game.

Not that any of that stopped him from training on his own, of course, and he used to trudge down to Graffiti Bridge after school to practice shooting against the old stone walls. On an overcast autumn afternoon, not quite midway through the second trimester, he pulled on his Lotto cleats with the broken laces and went down to the riverbed. As usual, he started off with some basic lifting, which had by then become sheer muscle memory for him, but made good warm-up. Then he happened to look up, and see someone passing by on the hill.

It wasn't unusual for other kids to play under the bridge while he practiced. They either stayed out of each other's way or decided to merge into a larger game. Taichi waved at the newcomer, a boy with an untamed mass of hair that must have been brown, but which looked drained of color by the overcast sky. Half-rimmed glasses perched on the arch of his tiny, pushed-in nose. He wore the uniform of Seinanjou Jr. High, which Taichi knew was ritzy and prestigious, and had a soccer team made of a bunch of bed-wetters.

As Taichi took another shot at his makeshift goal between two broken broomsticks, the boy slid down the hillside, splattering his tennis shoes with mud. At the bottom, he slid his hands in his pockets and stood there, watching. With an uneasy glance over his shoulder, Taichi wondered how long he'd been studying him from the top of the hill.

Never the type to carry on and let a problem resolve itself, he swiveled on his heel, leaving his soccer ball to roll in the dirt. He picked his way across the riverbed while raising a hand in casual salute.

"Yo," he said, because that was the cool thing to say, and it didn't make any promises that you gave a crap.

The other returned that with a quick tug of a grin. In fact he was a little creepy, Taichi thought. Maybe because he was taller, and looking down at Taichi through thick lenses, which were half obscured by the light. His skin was waxy pale, except for a smattering of gray freckles like a trail from cheek to cheek. Moreover, his bearing was that of a much older person, who kept a firm hand on the path his life took, and never let anything spin out of control. The effect of this on a middle school first year was slightly disconcerting.

"You overuse that right leg," remarked the boy, in a voice that was both self-assured and post pubescent.

"What?" Taichi looked at his legs, which were smeared in long streaks of grime. A scab was peeling off his right knee. "Uh, I'm right-handed, so –"

"It's normal for one body part to be stronger than the other. If you're right-handed, you may not have as much dexterity in your left. The same goes for your legs – one may be naturally stronger than the other, but if you allow yourself to take it easy on your less developed leg, it'll be your mistake."

Taichi switched from examining his legs to gawking at the boy himself. "But I run all the time," he protested. "And I do the same amount of exercises with each leg."

"Do you always shoot with your right leg?"

He thought for a moment, and nodded.

"Then you need to train your left leg to shoot as well. It won't always be convenient for you to shoot with your right leg, so your left needs to be substantially reliable in a pinch."

With a wary glance at this stranger who had turned up out of nowhere like the blessed saint of soccer, Taichi asked, "And you think so, why?" which was an absurd question, because he knew every word the boy had said was true. But he didn't like that he'd been criticized without so much as a self-introduction, especially by a student from Seinanjou. Who from Seinanjou could tell soccer from double-dutch? "Who are you, anyway?"

Instead of answering, the other strolled further down the riverbed, and tucked Taichi's soccer ball under the sole of his foot. "If you don't believe me, let's have a game," he said, and started lifting, just as Taichi had been when he appeared on the hill. The ball bounced between his calves, higher and higher, never faltering in its cycle even once. As the minutes stacked up, Taichi's skepticism turned into shock, and then excitement.

"Yes," he said, jogging after the boy. "Let's have a game."

But within the first fifteen minutes, he'd had the ball ripped away seven times. His every attempt to block the boy from stealing it failed, and he watched the ball soar past him, a perfect shot into a nonexistent goal. The last time, he tripped over his own feet trying to regain it, and thudded hard on his knees.

The boy paused several feet away. "You okay?" he asked.

"Again," Taichi huffed, pushing himself to his feet, but a foreign weight seemed to drag his upper body back down. "Again," he repeated, when the other made no move to come closer.

"Are you sure?" the boy asked, squinting at him. "You'll only get schooled."

That shot through him like a red hot bullet. Instead of answering, he mustered up his strength and rushed the boy, who froze at first in surprise. Then he gave some bemused laugh, and dribbled the ball away smoothly. In a beat, Taichi doubled back and caught up to him, and from the corner of his eye he caught the boy's bratty little smirk.

After the first hour, Taichi felt discouraged, but still fired up. After the second, he started to get overwhelmed. Sweat beaded his opponent's forehead, which wasn't much of a comfort when he was losing by miles. Taichi resolved, again, to take the game to close-quarters, since that was the only way a one-on-one game could be played. And yet, somehow, he always ended up pushed back until his opponent cleared enough space to maneuver into the goal. But he clenched his teeth, determined not to lose. Or at least to go down fighting. It was still exhilarating to face an opponent at such a high level of mastery.

The last rays of daylight began to disappear, the colors of dusk ran together, and the game continued. Although exhausted physically, Taichi's mental senses were at their peak. From the glint in the other boy's eye, he could tell his brain worked in the same way. Now that time was crucial, strategies buzzed through his head like ambient noise. The stench of dirt and sweat filled his nose, an icy fist gripped his throat with each breath, and his ankles throbbed as the ball flitted capriciously between them.

And then he made a misstep, or simply took too long to slide his foot into place, and the ball vanished along with his opponent. At that moment, he became loosely aware of the chilly night wind freezing the sweat that ran down his neck and arms into pinpricks of icicles. He dropped backwards, landing on the hard-packed earth, with his blank stare turned on the sky.

How long he lay there was a mystery. He closed his eyes and imagined that the other boy had gone home, savoring his victory. But when his heart rate started to calm, and the blood beating in his ears quieted, he realized the boy was still there, panting along with him. Rolling on his side and tilting his head, he could just see the boy collapsed on the ground, his once crisp uniform rumpled and coated in dust.

Gingerly, Taichi picked himself up. His legs felt at once sturdy as bricks and about to shatter. He took a few shaky steps forward, and sank back down.

"Good – _hah_ – game," he wheezed.

The other boy had his eyes on him again, deep and intense. Taichi's misgivings returned at full force. "What?" he asked, too tired to be properly irritated.

"Was I right?" the boy asked softly.

Taichi blinked. "What – about my legs?" He scratched his head. "Probably."

"Is that so." The boy tipped his head back and adjusted his glasses. "You're sure about that?"

"Yeah," Taichi nodded earnestly. "Because you're – I mean, no offense or anything – you're from Seinanjou, but you're better than me. I have to eliminate my weaknesses, if I want to get to your level."

"You're going to get very dirty," the boy observed.

He laughed. "Good thing I like baths."

"And you may never catch up."

"Says you. Just wait until next year, when we're both on a team. I'll wipe the floor with you. Odaiba Jr. High has never lost to Seinanjou yet."

"Are you dense?" the boy asked, with such an incredulous expression that Taichi almost laughed again. "What makes you think you can catch up to me in only a year? You either think too well of yourself, or you underestimate me."

Taichi felt a twinge of annoyance. "Maybe," he said, frowning, "or maybe I just don't see the point in assuming I'm going to lose. If you start out with the intention to win, you'll find the strength to press on until you do. Plus, it makes the journey that much more fun."

A shadow passed over the boy's face. He pulled his knees in and wrapped them in his arms. He looked at Taichi with a smile. "The world must seem very beautiful to you, Taichi."

Every other reply Taichi could have made flew from his mind. His heart skipped a beat. When had he mentioned his name?

The other boy had stood. "I think we'll meet again," he said, turning to climb the hillside. "Maybe. I haven't decided yet. But if we do, I'm sure you'll remember me."

All that had come flooding back to Taichi this afternoon, while he practiced shooting under the bridge. Years had passed since he'd last thought about it. And wondered why he hadn't insisted on the other boy's name.

Except that he knew it now, and had never told anyone.

The very first game Taichi played in as a substitute forward was against Seinanjou Jr. High. He thought for sure his mysterious opponent from the year before would have made it to regulars by then. But he never showed throughout the entire game. Afterward, Taichi described him to some of Seinanjou's substitutes, who'd shared a strange look and said there had never been a player like that on the team.

But then his little sister had become a Chosen Child again, and gotten mixed up with someone calling himself the Digimon Emperor. This Emperor had a crown of stylishly unkempt hair, tinted glasses on his nose, and a smirk like a viper. He was a genius. He played soccer.

And one day, after it turned out the Emperor's name was Ken and he wasn't so much of a viper after all, he invited his friends over for a Christmas party. The party met an untimely end when a monster invasion crashed through the city, but once the Chosen had cleaned up that little mess, they all saw Ken to the bus station so he could ride home to Tamachi. And Ken had said he was grateful to have friends to share Christmas with, because these last couple years had been very lonely without his brother. Taking out his wallet, he pulled out a photo which he claimed he'd only just started carrying with him, and Taichi looked at it and suddenly knew.

But what had Ichijouji Osamu been doing at Odaiba's Graffiti Bridge, just days before his death?

* * *

Taichi had never told Ken he'd met his brother. It was a rare thing for him to feel unsure, but he couldn't guess how Ken would take the news. Besides, it wasn't like he could say he wanted to share a good memory. Mostly he didn't know what to make of Osamu, even now. And he'd even heard Ken say that Osamu had hated soccer.

He wondered what it was about that memory that bothered him so much. Maybe the string of disturbing events he'd gone through lately was getting too much for him. As much as he hated to admit it, he was tired of feeling constantly on edge.

He still hadn't told anyone that he'd been digitized when the gate opened at Shiroike.

But Koushirou suspected it, he thought. He'd dodged a few sly questions thrown into their last couple of phone calls, but maybe not well enough. As he lounged on the couch, unable to find a comfortable spot, he decided that he should just come clean. The longer he hid the truth, the louder Koushirou and Sora would yell when they found out. Their voices would get high and squeaky. In theory it would be amusing, especially since Koushirou had this habit of turning cherry red when he was mad. But the amusement wouldn't last long once his ears began to ring with their shrieks.

Well, he was Yagami Taichi, fearless leader, hero of the soccer field, slayer of the quadratic formula. He had a reputation to protect.

Taichi peeled himself off the couch by rolling straight onto the floor. Then again, maybe Koushirou could wait until a decent hour. It was, after all, well past midnight. Normal people were tucked into their beds, instead of lying face-down on the living room rug.

He decided it was time to sleep. As he took hold of the coffee table and levered himself up, the television suddenly blinked and erupted into static. The luminescent numbers of the digital clock on the mantel started spinning, setting the time for 45:04, 23:55, 00:91. Through the cracked door of his father's study, he could see the computer screen glowing blue, tiny lights flickering in and out.

Taichi forced his eyes closed. By now he understood the signs, but he'd never grow used to what came next.

* * *

**Chapter Notes:**

1.] _shinai:_ A practice sword used in kendo.

2.] This is common practice in Japanese schools, straight up through high school. It reinforces the importance of senpai-kouhai relationships. The younger students observe the older students and learn from their successes and mistakes. In return they do the ordinary jobs, which may not seem to have much to do with sports, but actually they build strength, discipline, humility and patience for the motivated student. Plus, since every player on the regular team has had to go through this novice period, it can be seen as a ritual of initiation.

3.] Japanese school years are divided into trimesters, generally from April-July, late August-December, and January-March.

_Clearly I'm taking some liberties with Osamu's past. So far I don't think anything is particularly off from canon, although I've never been great with Ken's history since eventually it gets all Wonderswanny. Feel free to correct me, but even then I might leave it as is just for the sake of moving the plot along. The one thing that is doubtful is when exactly Osamu died. I figured Ken wandered around Digiworld after the Chosen did, though not long after, so I put him at nine years old. But eight might be more accurate. Anyway, I picked the latest time I thought was plausible for Osamu to die, since I wanted Taichi to be olderish. I don't think it interferes too much with Ken's history._

_Anyway, I hope this was worth the wait, and hopefully you won't need to wait quite as long for chapter nine. Thanks!_


	9. In Which Taichi and Daisuke Do Something

_A/N: Welcome back! I'm into my last month in Japan – hard to believe! Time has flown by for me, but it's also rather limited my writing time. Today, being the first day I had nothing, NOTHING to do, except bike to a convenience store and spend a ridiculous amount of yen on sweets, I finally finished this chapter. It hasn't been edited, so certain nonessential details will probably change in the future._

_I think I caused some confusion last chapter, with my reworking of Ken and Osamu's history. I have only finagled with the timeframe of Osamu's death. But it's still within parameters, just on the late side. Things will clear up as the story progresses, but for now, just know that Osamu still died when Ken was in elementary school._

_As ever, thanks for your awesome reviews! You guys are phenomenal, not to mention patient. Thanks to your support, we broke 100 pages last chapter! As a reward, here is the longest chapter to date, and the first chapter to feature all of the Chosen! I hope you enjoy it, and please give me your thoughts!_

* * *

**Chapter Nine**

**In Which Taichi and Daisuke Do Something Stupider Than Before**

"_Are you sure it isn't time for a 'colorful metaphor'?"  
- Spock, "The Voyage Home," _Star Trek_ Original Series_

** 08.11.2006**

** FRI**

Jun was asleep on the sofa in her bra. Daisuke glanced at the TV; some grainy Chinese film she couldn't possibly have an interest in flickered on the screen. He shut it off and shuffled back to the kitchen with his bowl of ramen. The last thing he needed was for her to wake up and start roaring. _("You slurp like a chimp!" "Who gets up at four in the morning thinking, 'I'd like some ramen right about now'?")_

Daisuke had two modes which were typical: On, which was during the daytime and when his energy peaked. And Off, at night, when he slept as heavy as an old sheep dog. It was very rare that he encountered fitful nights, like this one. But those were the breaks. For whatever reason, he couldn't sleep; he'd counted everything from imaginary sheep to the stars and planets on his boxers; he'd tossed around both under and over the covers; he'd tucked his ratty stuffed gorilla under his arm and tried to think sleepy thoughts. Nothing worked.

_Oh well,_ he thought, sliding into a chair at the kitchen table. _It's not like I've got anything to do in the morning, except sleep some more –_

BANG.

Daisuke just managed to keep from tumbling out of his chair by latching his hands to the table. "The heck!?" The urgent banging at the front door persisted. He threw a glance back at his sister, who thankfully snored on, and snapped his goggles around his head. Whatever salesman or Girl Scout got it into their head to go soliciting at this hour was in for a nasty surprise.

"Whoz'it?" Reaching the door, he squinted through the eyehole.

"Me," came Taichi's voice. "I'm turning into Frosty the Snowman out here, let me in."

Surprised, but no longer annoyed, Daisuke swung the door open. Taichi waddled in quickly, stamping his feet on the wood floor, drops of rain clinging to his hair.

"Hey." Daisuke grinned at Taichi's back, following him inside. "Dude, you're soaked. Did you go outside in the typhoon?"

"Yeah… needed to take a walk. Clear my head."

Daisuke's brow knit, but he passed it off as a Taichi quirk. For all he knew, Taichi took long walks in severe rainstorms on a regular basis. "Oh. So where's your corn cob pipe and button nose?"

"What?" Taichi said, distracted. "Oh, yeah. It's an icebox out there." His eyes roved the apartment, searching (or just buying time?). Finally they fell on Daisuke. "Daisuke, I need you to do me a favor," Taichi said. "Look – I have to go."

"But you just got here. You mean to the john?"

"To Digiworld."

Daisuke laughed. "Haha! Good one. Because all the best clubbing is found in Primary Village." He clapped a hand on Taichi's shoulder, felt him shivering. "Want some ramen?" he asked hospitably.

"I have to," Taichi murmured, as Daisuke steered him toward the kitchen. "I can't do it anymore, y'know? All this waiting, it's driving me up the wall. So I've got to go myself. Fix it myself."

"… Uh-huh." Wrenching a kitchen chair out with his foot, Daisuke tried to persuade his senpai to sit down. "Sure, okay. You've got to go to Digiworld to fix things, got it. I've got some pliers somewhere, if you want 'em, and that sister of mine must have something useful among her weapons of torture."

"Daisuke –"

"You like kitsune ramen? It's my favorite. Actually it's all we've got right now. Here, you can finish my bowl, I'll start another."

_"Daisuke!"_ Taichi shoved him back, ramen and all. "I don't want any of your stupid ramen! I'm serious! Serious," he repeated, but more softly as Daisuke blanched. "Do you get it?"

"What's there to get? You _can't_ go to Digiworld. Remember? It's a big no-no for all of us now, not just you."

"I know." Taichi smirked. "But rules are meant to be broken, right? And this vanishing act is a pain, so I've decided just to take care of it. So would you mind opening the Gate for me?"

He looked so smug that Daisuke could almost believe this was a well-thought out decision. Almost.

"But – that's –" He paused and licked his lips, gathering his thoughts. He could hardly believe he was having this conversation – particularly _him,_ who was neither mentally nor emotionally equipped to debate with Taichi. "That's, isn't that counterproductive? I mean, if you '_seriously'_ want to try to fix yourself, yourself – Koushirou said that being near Digital Gates, and especially going to Digiworld, would make you _worse,_ didn't he?"

"Yeah, I have this theory, he and Gennai are in cahoots to make my life one fat blot of paranoia." Hooking his arms around the back of a chair, Taichi regarded Daisuke with a casual smirk. "Geez, I'm _kidding._ Lighten up."

Daisuke crossed his arms and pouted. The bowl of ramen sat unattended on the tabletop. "Kidding about Koushirou and Gennai, or about going to Digiworld?"

He waited resolutely as Taichi sobered. "I have to go," Taichi explained, again. "No matter what the consequences are. Just wait a sec – would _you_ be able to stay here, doing nothing? To let your future be decided by people in another dimension who haven't even bothered to contact you, see how you're doing, keep you up-to-date?"  
There was an edge of bitterness to his voice, subtle, but Daisuke couldn't help thinking it indicated something; he couldn't put his finger on what. "I just want some hands-on action. I _need_ it." Taichi raised his eyes, which were red. _"Please,_ Daisuke. I can't wait anymore."

Rational thought became very, very difficult right then, with Taichi's face wiped clean of smiles, a mix of rain and sweat glistening in the dip between his eyebrows. Daisuke swallowed hard, knowing he couldn't say no, and also that he _had_ to. So he reverted to what he did best.

"This is a prank, isn't it?" He sniggered and gave Taichi's arm a pat. "I mean, it's _four a.m._ You're barely dressed. We've both got soccer practice in a few hours. You show up when it's barely morning, hoping to catch me sleeping in my crap-stained underwear, and after you snap a few incriminating pictures you're going to make me breakfast in bed. Yeah? 'Kay then, I want bacon and eggs, and I want them arranged like a smiley face with tomato slices for ears."

There was silence from his friend for a long moment. Then, in a low voice, Taichi answered, "It's _not_ a joke. I mean it; you keep your underpants, and your ramen, I'm _going_ to Digiworld. I just want you to open the Gate for me. That's all – then I'll be out of your hair," he finished, as if that were enough; as if that were all the reassurance Daisuke would need, to know that he didn't have to take responsibility for whatever happened after.

"But, Taichi-senpa–"

"Did you listen to what I said?" Taichi cut him off, angry now, his cheeks flushed. _"I can't wait anymore. _That's what's counterproductive! Lying around, waiting for someone in _another dimension_ to take care of _my_ problems – where's the logic in that? Come on, Daisuke." Once more he seemed to get himself under control, but now Daisuke was wary of the calm before the storm. "It's cute that you're worried, but I don't have time for your coddling. I've gone to Digiworld hundreds of times, what's one more?"

Daisuke hesitated. The last time he'd seen Taichi this wound up was – when the Emperor had enslaved Agumon. When he'd watched his senpai thoughtlessly throw himself into harm's way again and again.

He shut his eyes, desperately wracking his brain for the right thing to say. _Were_ there words that could reach him through whatever fog had filled his brain? What would Koushirou do; would he talk him out of it, it's crazy, you've got a screw loose –

Or would he trust him?

* * *

"What else d'you think we'll need?" With his hands planted on his hips, Daisuke surveyed the items scattered across the kitchen table. "Flashlights with extra batteries, first aid kit, toilet paper – nice thought, that – change of clothes, rain poncho, bottled water –" He glanced over at Taichi, who continued to pace in a cloud of disquiet. "Hey, should we run to a convenience store and grab some beef jerky, or something?"

Taichi shrugged one shoulder. "Nah. If you want, you can throw in some cup ramen and a pot. But I'm pretty good at foraging for food in Digiworld."  
"Okay, nix on the shopping. Let's see, there's my toothbrush and comb. What do you plan to do about those?"

"Borrow yours."

"Uh, not that you're not welcome to, but isn't sharing toothbrushes kind of creepy? I mean, not that I think you've got cooties, or anything."

"I'll do the same thing I did when I was a kid. We had one tube of toothpaste and one toothbrush for the lot of us which we found it the emergency aid kit Mimi'd brought along. Actually, Jou had his own toothbrush – he carried it around in his back pocket, and it lasted until he broke it when he was attacked by a Veggiemon. The rest of us put the paste on our fingers and went to town."

"Suit yourself. Finger toothbrushes, foraging rather than making the three-minute trip to the nearest convenience store – geez, I never knew you were such a man of the wilderness. Next you'll want to forego jeans for a loin cloth." Taichi managed to grin at him. "Okay then, anything else?"

"Kitchen sink?"

Daisuke chuckled, and Taichi stopped pacing long enough to inspect their supplies himself. "I think we're good," he said. "Anyway, I don't plan to stay there long. _You_ don't even have to come at all."

Rolling his eyes, Daisuke started packing his duffel bag. "We've been over this, man, There's no way I'm letting you run around Digiworld unsupervised, even though that might be awfully funny, if only because of the dressing down I'd get from Sora-san and Koushirou."

"Let me do that," Taichi said, wrinkling his nose as Daisuke haphazardly tossed each item in the duffel bag. He started to reorganize its contents, starting with their clothes, which he folded neatly and arranged as a bed for the other supplies. His hands were glad for something to do. His patience was nearly run out; if he didn't get through the Digital Gate soon, his nerves would shatter. What he'd wanted was to go there right away, but Daisuke had insisted they couldn't just port in without preparing.

And he was right, of course. It spoke of just how distressed Taichi was that he hadn't thought of such essentials himself. He wasn't a natural planner, but years of practice had accustomed him to never make a serious decision without ironing out the details ahead of time. A skill Daisuke hadn't quite mastered– or so he'd thought, but it was obvious who was taking care of whom at the moment.

Packing calmed him a bit too. He'd been a wreck when Daisuke had first let him in, and though he thought Daisuke probably didn't know just how much, there was no way he could have gone without noticing.

His companion lolled against the table, watching with disinterest as Taichi tucked the flashlight and a few packages of ramen into the duffel. "And you're absolutely sure you don't want to call any of the others?" he asked cautiously.

He'd asked many times already. Taichi understood his reasoning; after all, there was safety in numbers, as what had happened to Takeru recently had proven. But, really, he didn't even want Daisuke along. Partly because this was his problem to sort out, and he knew it was dangerous and probably stupid idea too, so he didn't want to drag his friends into trouble. And partly because more people would mean concern, though well-meant, coming in from more corners than he could bear.

"I emailed Koushirou," he answered for the fifth time. "I left a note for Hikari. They won't be left in the dark, but no, I don't want them to join us. I'd rather be _completely_ alone," he went on tersely, "but unfortunately, I can't open a portal by myself."

"Nope, sure can't." Daisuke's cheeky grin broadened and Taichi briefly considered the merits of knocking his teeth out. "Which means I get to come. Ha_ha."_

"Yeah, _haha._ Now let's get going. Might be nice to get there before the others figure out what we're doing and stop us."

"Stop you from going where?" said a voice, and both boys turned to find Jun staring at them through bleary eyes. Her hair was caught in a massive tangle. Taichi colored up and tried his hardest to look anywhere besides her chest, but if she felt at all uncomfortable to be caught in nothing but her bra and panda-print shorts, she gave no sign of it.

"None of your business." Daisuke stuck out his tongue, childishly, and Jun mimicked him.

"It's my business if I have to explain to Mom and Dad why the neighbors aren't complaining about the volume of your music for once."

"Tell them I've sworn off music in order to focus more fully on soccer," Daisuke said. "Better yet, tell them I'm at a cram school writing proofs for unsolvable math problems with all the whiz kids."

_"Pfft. _Even your alien abduction stories in elementary school were more believable than that."

"Say we went camping," Taichi suggested. Camping, the time-old, skin-saving excuse. It fit every detail they needed to cover. You packed lots of supplies, disappeared for a week or so, and when you came back you were too dirty and exhausted to deal with anxious parents' questions.

Jun locked eyes with him, scowling a little. She knew they were going to Digiworld – probably from the start, he thought. Her jaw jerked much like Daisuke's did on the rare occasions that he tried to think before he said something potentially insulting. "Then while you two are _'camping',"_ she said, "I hope you don't cause too much trouble. Like with bears or park rangers or poisonous mushrooms. I'm holding you responsible," she added, jabbing a finger at Taichi's chest. "You're older. And by default smarter."

"Hey," Daisuke grumbled.

Taichi gently pushed her hand aside. "I'll look after him. Really."

"I don't need looking after," Daisuke protested with a sulky grunt. "And stop staring at my sister's boobs. It's grossing me out."

"I'm - not!"

"Avoiding looking at them is grossing me out too!"

Jun's lips spread in a coy smirk. "What, they're just breasts. I don't care. Look all you want, just don't drool on the carpet like a dog."

"You have a nice rack," Taichi shot back, not quite sure what game they were playing, but damned if he was going to lose.

"Aren't they though?"

"Okay, okay, already." Throwing his hands up in a gesture of supreme disgust, Daisuke pushed Taichi towards his bedroom. "Ugh, you guys are sickening. I'm gonna puke ramen all over you."

"Hey," Jun called after them. "I can't help it. It's a novelty to have a man in the house who knows how to appreciate D-cups."

"Did you hear that?" Taichi sniggered as he was propelled into Daisuke's room. "She called me a man."

"She also called you a dog," Daisuke muttered, dropping the duffel unceremoniously in Taichi's lap. "I thought you wanted to get going right away."

Slinging the bag over his shoulder, Taichi nodded once. "I do. I was just distracted for a minute. What's got you all worked up?"

Daisuke shrugged. His hands fumbled in his pockets, eventually emerging with his D3. "Nothing. Ready?"

Frowning, Taichi searched his memory. "Is it what she said about you not knowing how to appreciate D-cups? 'Cause, you know, I haven't actually managed to date anyone for more than two weeks, and I'm almost eighteen. So you shouldn't feel bad about being single."

"I'm not pissed about that," Daisuke sighed. "She's my sister. I definitely don't want to care about her boobs."

"Glad to hear it. Ready to go? Aim for Sector B12-43." He'd already produced his own Digivice. The original model. Not as souped up as Daisuke's D3, but he personally liked it better, and it was efficient enough in its own right.

Nodding, Daisuke looked towards the glowing computer screen. "Digi-port, open!"

* * *

** Digiworld  
Sector B12-43, 05:12:56 AM**

They landed in a heap on soft and springy grass. Taichi was the first to scramble to his feet and look around. They were in a forest of tall trees – somewhat like redwoods, he thought – and boulders covered in creeping moss and lichen. The damp, cool smell of wood after rain clung to the air like a gossamer curtain.

"It's cold," Daisuke commented, rising with his arms wrapped around his torso.

"Dig for your sweatshirt," Taichi replied, passing him the duffel. "We must be somewhere up high. I think I see fog."

Sure enough, as they trudged through the forest, a sheer, rocky cliff came into sight. Below it were rolling green hills, thickly shrouded in a milky haze, leading to a barely visible valley. Judging by the sun, it was early morning, and nothing but the noises of birds and insects came to greet them.

"So now what?" Daisuke asked, thrusting his hands in the pockets of his sweatshirt and matching Taichi stride for stride.

"Now?" Taichi glanced at him briefly. "Now I've got to try to find Gennai."

"Okay, so where do we start? What's the plan?"

"There is no plan," Taichi sighed. "We have no clues."

Daisuke's mouth slid open, and he made a small disbelieving noise. "You don't even have a plan!?"

_"You_ can go home if you don't like it," Taichi replied irritably. "In fact, that's what I wish you'd do."

"And I've already said I won't, so can it." Scowling darkly, Daisuke jabbed his elbow into Taichi's side. "Why are you being so mean?"

His frustration simmered down as fast as it had overcome him and was replaced with deep disappointment. "Sorry," he said, wondering if he sounded as exhausted as he felt. "I'm just… I…"

"I'm just a ninny loser! Go-yon!"

Taichi's head whipped around, and Daisuke's did the same. Peering up at a tall, leafy tree above him, he could just make out some of the branches bouncing and waving as something scrambled among them. "Who's there?" he called out, taking a cautious step forward.

"No one there but meeee! Go-yon! But you haven't any brains under all that hair, go-yon!"

"Listen, you little creep!" Daisuke's hands balled into fists. "If you're gonna insult us, at least do it where we can see you!"

"As you wish, uglies! As you desire, go-yon!" The branches buoyed once more, and something small and peach-colored hurled towards the forest floor. At the last moment, long-fingered hands popped out to grab hold of the lower branches, and the creature swung up on limber legs and greeted them with a huge, toothy grin. In body he looked like a small, chubby, pink monkey with a round bell attached to his swaying tail. Over his face, just above that Cheshire mouth, was the long-nosed, angry red mask of a _tengu._

"I'm Gonmon! Go-yon!" The creature wound its tail around the branch, swinging over to stare at them upside-down. "It's so _very_ nice to meet you uglies! I've been waiting; won't you tell me your names?"

At the words "I've been waiting," Taichi's senses snapped onto high alert. Already his fingers itched to grab the little creature around its twig-like neck. But things were never how they seemed in Digiworld; even someone like _this_ could turn out to be an ally.

"Why have you been waiting for us?" he asked, one hand on his Digivice, remembering with a pang that Agumon wouldn't be able to rescue him.

"Oh, not for you. Not for you _specific_ uglies. Any uglies would do, go-yon, you just happen to be the first, foolish uglies, and now I need your names, please."

"Fat chance, Pinocchio," Daisuke growled.

The monkey's head swiveled; beady eyes locked on Daisuke. To the two Chosen's astonishment, his grin somehow stretched farther. "Oh, _very_ good! Oh, capital! I hadn't dared hope the first I'd meet was you, go-yon!"

And Gonmon launched himself from the safety of the tree, landing squarely on Daisuke's head.

_"Hey!"_ Daisuke clawed furiously at the Digimon, whose hands were buried deep in tufts of his hair. "Get _off!_ Ow!"

"You've got a monkey on your head," Taichi exclaimed, bewildered, and grappled for a hold on Gonmon's torso.

Gonmon whipped his tail out and smacked Taichi across the face. He staggered back, and in the split second it took him to reorient himself, Gonmon removed his tengu mask. And slapped it over Daisuke's eyes.

Almost immediately, Daisuke ceased struggling. His arms fell loose at his sides, and his shoulders drooped. Even his knees seemed to sag tiredly under the weight of the rest of his body.

Taichi made a mad dash for that mask. Whatever it was doing to Daisuke – he had to get it off. He wrapped a hand around the obtruding nose and pulled.

"I wouldn't, if I were you, go-yon!" Gonmon hopped about merrily, balanced on his hands. He made no move to stop him –

_"Aaaugh!"_ At once, a searing pain shot through Taichi's palms, as if he'd grabbed onto a branding iron. He lost his grip, tumbling on his back, the skin on his hands blistering like fire. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to think about the pain, scrabbling onto his knees –

Then Daisuke's shadow fell over him, Gonmon perched on his head. With strength Taichi knew couldn't be fully his, he grabbed hold of Taichi's collar and lifted him off the ground. He drove his foot deep into Taichi's solar plexus, and the last thought that passed through Taichi's mind was _I knew I never liked monkeys_ before the world went black.

* * *

** Earth  
Tokyo, Japan, 09:35:12 AM**

Mimi lifted a shiny black-and-silver blouse to her chest and ran her fingers over the fine material. "What do you think?" she asked, modeling it in front of a full-length mirror. "It's nicely priced, really a good deal. But I hardly ever wear dark colors these days."

She watched the reflection of Sora give a half-hearted shake of her head. "Dunno, Mimi-chan. It would look great on you. But if you're not going to wear it, you should save your money."

This had been her standard answer to each of Mimi's appeals for an opinion over the last half hour. Mimi knew Sora had never been the shopper she was, but she wasn't without a sense of fashion. In fact, Sora dressed more tastefully than a lot of girls Mimi knew – which she guessed had a lot to do with her mother's strict and proper rearing, something Sora had balked at when she was ten but likely appreciated now.

"I think you should wear it." Mimi offered the garment to her friend as a peace-making gesture. Really, she was grateful to Sora for indulging her so much over the past week. It was just that she hadn't been to Harajuku in years, and now that she was finally old enough to wear the clothes she'd longed for, she found it hard not to completely lose herself in excitement.

Sora held up a dissenting hand. "I'll pass. It's pretty, but not really my style."

Pouting, Mimi replaced the blouse on the rack. "At this rate I'm never going to find anything worth buying."

"Mimi-chan." Sora sighed, dropping her arms. "We've been through twelve shops. _Twelve._ You've looked amazing in everything you've tried on –"

"Except that woolen disaster that made me look like a sheep –"

"– You just can't seem to settle on one thing. Which, actually, surprises me, since the Mimi-chan I remember bought everything that caught her fancy without a second thought. _Are_ you trying to save money?" Sora peered at her, as if she could tell the state of Mimi's finances by her dimples.

Laughing, Mimi linked their arms, and together they strolled out into the packed morning streets of Harajuku. "Don't worry. As ever, I'm still quite the spoilt princess. I've just learned not to spend money so freely, that's all. It looks bad to other people. Besides," she added with a smirk, "my closet is running out of room."

Sora chuckled, and dropped her head into her hands. "I give up. Look, how about we take a break. I saw a Starbucks earlier. I could use a latte or something."

"Sounds good."

They started for a nearby crosswalk. As they waited for the Walk light to turn green, Sora's handbag began to vibrate. She dug around and pulled out her cell phone; just as she was flipping it open, Mimi's phone chimed from her pocket.

The girls exchanged a glance. Then, steeling themselves, they looked at their screens.

"'Taichi-san has bolted'," Sora read, and halted, sucking in her breath with a hiss.

"'Gone with Daisuke-kun to Digiworld. Left a note, but no indication as to his plan. Not responding to emails. Meeting at my house asap. Koushirou'," Mimi finished, and looked at Sora with her mouth open. "Oh my gosh."

Sora hissed something – possibly profane – under her breath, and picked up her pace as they crossed the street. Mimi hurried after her, chest constricting.

"I'm sure they're fine," she said. "No one knows Digiworld better than Taichi-san. And Daisuke-kun isn't lacking skills himself."

"If he's fine, I will kill him," Sora fumed. "He has no right to come out of this without significant bleeding, ego-bruising, and remorse."

Rolling her eyes, Mimi turned with her towards the subway station. "Ooh, feel the love."

But, like Sora, inside she was a knot of worry. Everything she'd heard since arriving in Japan – about the Spore Children, about Taichi's digitizing – came rushing back to her. Up until now, it hadn't seemed real – no monsters threatening her doorstep, no ominous red light blinking on her Digivice. Her friends were as they always were. Sora, kind and tolerant. Yamato, distant but loyal. Koushirou and Jou, too busy for many visits but always there for her as a kind of solid presence. And Taichi, goofy, fun-loving, teasing. Happy.

It pained her to admit, without Sora's explanation during the drive from Narita, she might never have guessed a single thing was wrong.

* * *

"'Hikari, in Digiworld, don't worry, stay here.' That's all he wrote." Hikari dropped her brother's hastily scribbled note in her lap. "That's all he felt his own sister deserved to know."

"He got a little wordier with me," Koushirou admitted. He drew Taichi's email up on the computer screen. "Listen: 'Koushirou – I know I should have told you, but it's been happening to me again. I can't sit around and wait anymore. I'm going to find Gennai. Don't worry the others, just keep a look-out for messages from me. I'm counting on you, Taichi.'"

"Oh, come on. Like we're going to wait around for him to find the time to email you." Taichi's little sister slung her arms over Koushirou's desk chair, twisting it slowly back and forth. Koushirou couldn't decide if she was close to tears, or if her relative calm could be trusted.

For lack of anything better to do while they waited for the rest of the Chosen to arrive, Koushirou opened his inbox again, scanned his new messages for a line from Taichi, Daisuke, even Gennai. "We certainly aren't. He should know better than to pull a stunt like this. I'm surprised at him – and at Daisuke-kun too."

"Why?" Hikari demanded. "Daisuke-kun has never been able to say 'no' to Oniichan."

"I know you're upset, but don't be so quick to cast blame," Koushirou said gently. "Taichi-san at least matches Daisuke-kun in stubbornness, if he doesn't exceed him. _Most_ of us have a hard time coping with Taichi-san when he's got his heart set on something."

She quieted at that, knowing it was true, and Koushirou thought about the vast number of times he'd fallen in with Taichi's schemes even against his better judgment. Of course, Taichi had changed a lot during their first adventure in Digiworld, had learned not to jump into danger without thinking – which was a big part of why he'd kept his position of leader so long. He had a head for strategy, and could sometimes put together the puzzle even more quickly than Koushirou, because of how rarely he panicked.

But that was exactly what worried Koushirou now. The email Taichi had sent him, and particularly the note he'd left for Hikari, were not the words of their usual calculating, clear-headed leader. On the contrary, in both messages he sounded on the verge of a breakdown.

Koushirou's bedroom door clicked open, and Ken strode in carrying a backpack. He looked at Koushirou grimly and gave him a nod. "Thanks for waiting," he said, sounding truly grateful. It was, after all, his best friend who was caught up in this mess.

"Not a problem. Actually, we're still waiting on Sora-san and Mimi-san," Koushirou replied. "They're coming from Harajuku, so for once there's someone traveling from farther away than you."

Ken dropped his bag on the floor. Jou and Yamato, seated on Koushirou's bed, moved over to make room for him to sit down. Miyako and Iori were crouched in a corner, speaking in low voices – to Koushirou's ears, it sounded like Miyako was panicking a bit herself, and Iori was carefully trying to keep her calm.

He glanced back at Hikari. She'd pulled her cell phone out and was typing a text – probably to Takeru, since they hadn't heard back from him. That had to be tough – her brother missing, and her best friend not around to comfort her.

Hesitantly, he laid a hand on her shoulder, gave it a squeeze. She looked at him, surprised, and he felt a hot blush cover his cheeks. But she smiled gratefully, and he relaxed. Human interactions had never been his strong point, but once in a while, he did the right thing. And those occasions were… very pleasant.

The door swung open again minutes after Ken had settled in, admitting Sora and Mimi – neither of whom were dressed for a rescue mission, Koushirou thought, noticing their bare feet which could only mean they'd come in sandals. Both girls' toes showed signs of a recent pedicure.

"Ugh, I'm so glad we made it," Mimi groaned, leaning against the wall and redoing her ponytail.

"Was the Yurikamome crowded?" Koushirou inquired.

"Like you wouldn't believe. Although it was the train from Harajuku that was the worst bit. We couldn't find a single free seat on either."

"Any word from them?" Sora asked, making her way to Koushirou's side. Her hands went right for Hikari's shoulders, massaging them gently.

"Negative," Koushirou sighed. "I've sent many emails, but no luck. I don't know if I should hope they're ignoring me deliberately, since the alternative is they can't reply."

"I doubt Taichi would willfully ignore us." Jou paused in reviewing their stock of supplies. "He's many things, but not irresponsible."

"The fact that he even tried a move like this might contradict that," Yamato said.

"I seem to remember the last time one of us decided to set off on their own, it was you," Koushirou said.

Yamato arched his brow, tilted his head coolly. "And have I ever said it wasn't a bad decision?"

"Actually, the last person was me," Jou put in sheepishly, as he readjusted his glasses. "And I don't think it was a bad decision. I needed to pull myself together, and to do that I needed space. I'm sure Yamato was the same, and maybe even Taichi."

"But Taichi _did_ bring Daisuke-kun with him."

"Daisuke-kun may not have given him a choice."

Hikari made a noise like a snort at that. "What were you saying earlier, Koushirou-san, about Oniichan being more stubborn than Daisuke-kun?"

"So what's the plan?" Sora asked, drawing them back on topic. "We're going after them, right?"

Koushirou nodded, and started to answer, but Yamato cut in before he opened his mouth: "Are we sure that's the wisest step right now? We're not supposed to go there, and the whole lot of us diving in might just make things worse."

Yamato was sitting on the edge of Koushirou's bed, reclining back on his arms with his legs stretched out in front of him. His hair was impeccably styled; he'd penciled in his eyebrows. He'd been on his way to Yoyogi Park to hold an impromptu concert with his band when he'd received Koushirou's message. And although he'd immediately rushed to meet the other Chosen, it was clear to everyone in the room that he wasn't thrilled about it.

Not, Koushirou reasoned, that any of them were.

"Basically, we've got two bad choices in front of us," Koushirou started to explain. "Like Yamato-san said, we aren't supposed to go to Digiworld right now. Our presence could possibly exacerbate the situation further. On the other hand, leaving Taichi-san and Koushirou-kun to their own devices seems too cruel. We can't be sure their silence isn't because they're injured or lost."

"We _have_ to go," Sora gasped, staring at the others as if she couldn't believe there was any need for discussion. "Taichi's not okay. If he's being digitized again – we can't just expect –"

"He's a big boy. And he's got Daisuke with him. We don't even know where to start looking for them, geez. All you want to do is exactly what _they_ did – leap in without any directions, without a plan –"

"Fine, Yamato, then stay here," Sora snapped, whirling on him with claws bared. "Go to your rehearsal. Play with your groupies. Have a _great_ time. We'll let you know if anyone gets hurt, or _dies,_ God forbid –"

"Sora-san!" Mimi shrilled, alarm written across her pretty features.

Yamato's eyes glinted dangerously. "Thanks for that, Sora. It's nice to know you think I'm just human enough to care if anything happens to my _best friend."_

Scared that the scene playing out before him could only end in disaster, Koushirou wished, not for the first time, that he were more assertive. Or had the kind of no-nonsense reputation that inspired some degree of respect. He knew that Sora hadn't meant to lash out at Yamato; she was upset, like they all were. Maybe more so, because Taichi was her oldest friend, and she had a tended to stress over her loved ones' welfare. And the tension between her and Yamato had thickened as of late, to the point that they could rarely be in a room together without one or the other leaving in an injured huff. Yamato, for his part, had always been more sensitive than most, particularly when it came to Sora.

"You have a funny way of showing it." Sora folded her arms across her chest. Mimi had come up next to her and was hovering just out of harm's way.

"If I recall correctly, _I_ was part of the team that rescued Takeru's D3 last week. _You_ were nowhere to be found," Yamato countered, rising from the bed. Surprised, Jou stood too, looking harassed.

"That's because no one called me!" Sora cried. "Which is _another_ thing I've been meaning to mention –"

"What, that you can't stand letting go of an iota of control for even a second?" Yamato sneered.

"I _meant_ the lack of trust among us lately!" Sora thundered back. "You know, Yamato, I'm beginning to think it's not me you have a problem with, you just hate _people!"_

This _had_ to stop. "That's –" Koushirou stammered, as soon as he could break in, frustrated beyond words with both of them.

But before he could go on, before either party realized he'd even spoken, Ken stepped between them. He was tall, already taller than either of them, and he gently covered Sora's hands with his own, and placed his other just below Yamato's shoulder.

"While I appreciate that the dilemma before us is a hard one," he said quietly, "I know I don't need to remind you that Daisuke is there, in that world, possibly hurt, possibly unable to contact us. And your incessant arguing is preventing me from going to him. So I suggest you shut up, and start acting your age. Because if you persist, I'm going to knock you both down and go on my own."

Yamato and Sora gaped at him, suddenly speechless. Then Hikari stood up and placed herself beside Ken. "That goes for me too," she said with such grave resolve that the older pair blushed simultaneously, and immediately lost their fighting spirit. Sora, shame-faced, turned towards Koushirou's computer screen, although she didn't appear to really see it. Yamato crossed his arms, holding himself stiffly, like a wounded cat.

Ken now fixed his attention on Koushirou. "I think we should port in with our supplies, and make a systematic search of as many known territories as we can. By the time we finish, we'll probably have learned something. It's likely enough Taichi-san picked an area he knew, anyway."

"That's a good point," Koushirou said slowly. "In fact, since he did say he wanted to find Gennai, it's a safe bet he picked Sector B12-43 for a starting point."

"Why?" Miyako asked dimly from her corner.

"Because, when we were kids, that's where Gennai lived."

Miyako gaped. "Whoa! You mean Gennai has a house? I thought he spent all his time floating around the clouds with the Sovereigns."

"Things in Digiworld changed a lot from the time of our adventure to the time you guys were Chosen," Jou replied. "I'm sure they've changed even more by now – but Koushirou is right, B12-43 is as good a guess as any."

"Then let's go," Sora said, anxious but determined. She picked up her bag.

"Wait, Sora-san, do you and Mimi-san have the right kind of shoes?" Koushirou asked.

Sora and Mimi looked at each other and chuckled. Unzipping her bag, Sora showed him two pairs of brand new hiking shoes. "Really new. Really expensive. Half the reason we were late," she explained.

"But they're water-resistant, so they're worth it," Mimi added brightly.

Shaking his head, Koushirou waved them off. "Alright, in that case –" he started to say, when, astonishing them all, Gennai suddenly appeared on his computer.

Or rather, a pixelated caricature of Gennai walked to the center of his screen and waved. The others flew to collect around Koushirou's chair, each shocked and slack-jawed.

"Hello, children," Gennai said gravely. "How are you? You seem all in a tizzy."

_"Tizzy" is a bit of an understatement,_ Koushirou thought, his head spinning. "Hi, Gennai. Nice to see you."

"I wish I could say the same." The old man sighed, and dropped his shoulders. "To be honest, I was hoping not to hear from you for quite a long time. But circumstances being what they are… I must insist you all come to Digiworld right away. I am sending you new coordinates, Koushirou. Please come quickly."

And just as abruptly as he'd appeared, Gennai popped out.

For a moment, the group stood in silence as each tried to work through his or her muddled thoughts. Unsure how he should react, Koushirou scanned the faces of his friends, and found most of them looking right back at him. He glanced between Sora and Yamato. Together, as if they'd agreed on it the whole time, they gave him a nod.

"Let's go," Koushirou said, pushing back in his chair.

Everyone scrambled for their packs. Sora and Mimi dropped to the floor, lacing up their new shoes. Jou made one last hurried check of their supplies. Ken pulled Hikari, Miyako, and Iori into a tight knot, striking up a rapid but hushed conversation. Then Takeru burst wildly through the door.

"Thank God, you're still here." He leaned against the wall, panting. His shirt was sweat-soaked, his hair bending every which way. "I didn't know what I'd do if I missed you. Try to catch up, I guess, but –"

"Takeru-kun!" Hikari exclaimed, tripping over Sora's bag and throwing her arms around him. "You made it! Your mom let you out?"

His lips twitched into a wry grin. "She did, once I told her I had to go 'camping.'"

Hefting his backpack over his shoulder, Yamato turned to Takeru with a knowing look. "Couldn't fool her, huh."

"At this point," his brother sighed, "whenever I'm out of her sight, she thinks I'm in Digiworld."

Finally they were all together – going to Digiworld together, for the first time in years. Once they met up with Taichi and Daisuke, the circle would be complete.

Koushirou couldn't help smiling at the thought. Just a little.

* * *

** Digiworld  
Sector B12-43, 13:03:41**

Something sticky covered his eyes. Not sticky like honey – this was thinner, somewhere between sticky and slimy. Nattou-sticky, as if someone had thrust his face into a full bowl. Wherever he was, it smelled like nattou too. Eugh.

Daisuke tried to pry his eyes open, to no avail. His body felt heavy as a lump of iron, which was, to say the least, rather frightening. He couldn't tell if he was standing or lying down. In fact, it took him a few minutes before he realized his legs were moving.

He willed them to stop. They were _his_ legs, dammit. They should listen. But they meandered on independently, and Daisuke wondered, only half-joking, if maybe he was dead. Perhaps his disembodied legs were leading him to the River Styx. He hoped not. He had yet to make his mark on Sanou High's soccer team, like he'd been dreaming. On the other hand, if he was going to die, he wouldn't mind it happening before the school entrance exam, since it would suck to spend all that time stressing and studying and then never get the chance to join the team.

_What am I thinking. I'm not dead. That's bull. I am just very sticky. For all I know, this is just another awkward stage of puberty no one likes to talk about. Yeah, that's it. I bet I've morphed into a giant pimple. Motomiya Daisuke, the Giant Pimple. That can be my stage name. Ken can sell tickets and we can go on tour together and have all the babes money can buy._

Besides, there was no way death could smell this gross.

Suddenly, his legs came to a halt in their automatic trek. Once again, he tried to wrench his eyes open, but to his horror, found his body growing heavier still, like there was a weight hanging from his neck. He dropped to his knees, but forced himself to keep from collapsing completely. It took all his concentration just to keep himself upright, but he wasn't about to relinquish what tenuous control he still had over his own body.

Then he heard something creak. Wood floor. Shuffling footsteps – and a smell even more putrid. Daisuke wrinkled his nose, trying not to gag.

"What's this you've brought, Gonmon? My, my, what's this?" croaked a voice, rough and brittle, as if someone were trampling autumn leaves.

"It's an ugly, one of the uglies, go-yon!" Gonmon, who Daisuke hadn't even realized had been sitting on his shoulder all this time, leapt off him and cackled wickedly. "You told me to find the uglies and bring them, go-yon. Particularly the one with the silly goggles. I found them, what luck! I found the one with the goggles, go-yon."

"So you did. Good work." Suddenly clammy hands groped at his arms, the hem of his shirt. Lifting his shirt over his head. "Curses, Gonmon, remove your ridiculous mask."

"I doubt that would be wise, go-yon," Gonmon said nervously. "The uglies are a feisty bunch."

_"I_ am Wisdom, Gonmon. Or have you forgotten? Now remove the mask, or I'll snap off that nose myself."

Daisuke grimaced as the – mask – he'd apparently been wearing began to peel off his face, and slowly the world brightened. His skin still felt gross, and his eyes were a little swollen, but he was relieved to be able to see again. He blinked slowly, adjusting to the light.

Then it hit him, as his view was once again obscured, that someone was trying to pull his shirt over his head, and he was doing nothing to stop them.

"Hey! Cut it out!" He batted at coarse, twig-like hands, and scrambled backwards. "Dude, going around peeking under people's shirts is _so_ not cool!"

But if he'd expected a fight, he was disappointed. Gonmon he could see standing on his head, wearing his mask and a confused little frown. The other had disappeared from Daisuke's view.

Then a staff came down on Gonmon's head.

"Owwwww!" sobbed the little Digimon. "It hurts, go-yon! My poor head, go-yon, is cracked like a coconut!"

"You nincompoop!" shrieked the wobbling voice. "This is the _wrong one!_ I can't do a thing with this one!"

Amid Gonmon's howls and the other Digimon's banshee-like recriminations, Daisuke saw his chance. Crawling across the floor, he made for a dark archway through which he could hear the wind. But just as he was nearing it, something landed hard on his back and his head hit the floor.

_"Oof."_

"Not so fast! Not so fast! I haven't finished with you yet!" Daisuke strained to see above him until stars burst in front of his eyes. What he could make out was a plump, wrinkled brown head half-hidden by a mountain of gray hair. Huge, uneven frog eyes peered through the Digimon's stringy fringe. In her hand was the staff that had been the cause of poor Gonmon's troubles, which she now lowered to Daisuke's forehead.

"Let's see what we might find, shall we? Gonmon, restrain his legs."

With surprising strength, Gonmon wrapped Daisuke's legs in a vise-like grip. With the rest of his limbs, he pinned Daisuke's arms behind his back.

Daisuke spat at the floor. "When I get up, I'm gonna shove that stick in your goofy face," he snarled.

The plump Digimon put her face close to his. The stench quickly became unbearable. "Be quiet, ugly," she said, rattling her staff. "It will all be over with in a moment."

In front of Daisuke's nose, the staff was enveloped by a fluorescent purple glow. The Digimon began chanting – or gargling, Daisuke couldn't quite tell which. He began to think he should worry when his D3 started to hum in response.

The humming grew along with the light, until Daisuke had to clamp his eyes shut to protect them. The Digimon lifted the staff, and brought it down hard on the floor. It burst into a cloud of lavender smoke.

Daisuke coughed as the smell of lilacs funneled up his nostrils. He could hear Gonmon and his mistress hacking away beside him, and wondered, _Was that supposed to happen?_

Apparently not. "You fool!" the Digimon shouted, once at Gonmon. Now that she'd exploded her staff, she had to resort to strangling him with her shriveled hands. Gonmon hung limp in her grasp, like a rag doll, the lower, unmasked part of his face turning slightly blue.

Daisuke staggered to his feet, coughing puffs of purple dust. "Alright, I'm officially annoyed," he said. He plucked Gonmon from the fat Digimon's hands and held him by the scruff of his neck. "I think you'd better tell me what's going on, before I get it into my head to stomp on you both."

The two Digimon stared at each other, bewildered. Daisuke straightened his back. He'd already sized up the situation, and decided this pair was on level with the likes of Gazimon or RedVeggiemon – bad, but stupid, and mostly full of hot air. _Possibly_ they were hiding the strength of Arukenimon and Mummymon, but even then he wouldn't worry much. Back in the day, those two had proven decent opponents, but the Chosen had evolved so much since that if Imperialdramon so much as sneezed in their direction, those two clowns would have high-tailed it to another dimension.

Gonmon's tail curl into a spring, then popped out at Daisuke's head. Daisuke caught it and glared. "Quit it already. I want answers. Who the heck are you?"

Seething, Gonmon made a screeching noise that was more monkey-like than anything he'd done so far. Hearing him, the other Digimon held up a hand. She drew herself up to her full heat – maybe two feet tall, three feet wide – and smacked her thick lips.

"I am Babamon," she said. "I suggest you release my subordinate. He gets very cranky when others touch his tail."

Daisuke frowned. "If I do that, how do I know he won't stick that freaky mask on me again?"

"There would be no point, go-yon," said Gonmon impatiently. "Babamon has already determined you are the wrong ugly. She can do nothing with you, go-yon. You are free to go."

"And exactly _what_ were you planning to do to me if I turned out to be the right 'ugly'?"

"Nothing harmful," Babamon answered. "Nothing cruel. Only I needed your fractal code. But yours is too well protected, so I will not detain you. You may go."

Unsure how to respond to this unexpected cordiality, and suspecting a trick, Daisuke kept his hold on Gonmon. "Why do you need my fractal code?" he asked, making an effort to sound like he had some idea of what that was.

A sound emitted from Babamon, a great belly laugh that shook the floor and sent chills down Daisuke's spine.

"To become beautiful," she said, batting her eyes at Daisuke, who stepped back, unnerved. Her wrinkled arms rose slowly to smooth some stray locks of hair. As she approached him wearing that same distorted maiden's smile, Gonmon escaped and bounded to her side. Once again he let out that ear-splitting monkey shriek.

"What now, you little plague?" Babamon snapped, her girlish visage fading as she reverted to the grouchy old crone.

"That should be my line. Babamon, how nice of you to visit. Although I must admit I'm rather puzzled. I thought I'd asked you quite politely never to come here again."

Daisuke made no attempt to keep his jaw from dropping open. "Gennai!" he cried, as the old man padded gingerly onto the floor. Gennai's lips curved upwards beneath his catfish's moustache, and Daisuke thought he might even have winked.

"Why, hello, Daisuke. It's a regular party here in my guest room. I wonder that I wasn't invited. But I'm sure it just slipped your mind."

"Why are you here?" Babamon spat, her bulbous body trembling. "You are supposed to be –"

"I returned," Gennai said simply. "Just in time, it appears. Now, Babamon, kindly take your tone-deaf companion and leave this place, for your own sake, if not for mine. The sea will close soon, and if you are still here when the stairs disappear, I'm afraid I'll have to seal you in the dungeon."

Gennai had a dungeon? Somehow, Daisuke thought he should be more surprised than he was.

Spitting, and mumbling viciously under her breath, Babamon yanked on Gonmon's arm. "We'll be on our way," she croaked, waddling for the archway. "Don't think we're finished, Gennai. Don't you forget there are _many_ secrets of yours I know. You won't always have the upper hand."

"Be sure to throw the Seadramon a marlin or two on your way out," Gennai replied cheerfully. "When their bellies are empty, they can be quite unpredictable."

Hurling one last curse over her shoulder, Babamon vanished with Gonmon out the door.

Daisuke stared after them until curiosity forced him to fix his attention on Gennai. "What was _that_ all about?" he cried, hurrying to the guru's side.

"All in due time, my boy." Gennai's moustache quivered as he laughed. "That Babamon is quite the character. Let me advise you – you are young, and can still avoid an old man's mistakes: Never, no matter how tempting it may be, insult a lady's choice of wardrobe."

"Gotcha," Daisuke said faintly. His thoughts all ran in a jumble. Gennai headed down a narrow hall, and Daisuke hurried to keep up. "But – for real, man. Why'd you just let her go? Isn't she evil?"

"Evil?" Lifting an eyebrow, Gennai regarded Daisuke for a moment. "No, not evil. No more evil than Apocalymon, at any rate. But it is safe to say she is very, very angry. Not someone you'd like to cross."

"But she kidnapped me," Daisuke protested. "Her shrimpy familiar stuck that mask on me, which forced me to leave Taichi-san and come here and – gaaah!" He clapped his hands on either side of his head. "Taichi-san! He's out there somewhere!"

"Is he indeed?" Gennai sounded far too composed for Daisuke's state of mind. "Well, I suppose we'll have to collect him before Babamon does."

"This sucks," Daisuke groaned. "Gennai, you got any idea where he is?"

Sliding open what Daisuke had taken for a rice paper window, Gennai gave a breathy chuckle. "Maybe I do," he said pleasantly, shuffling inside a dimly-lit tatami room.

Not bothering to hide his restlessness, Daisuke followed after him. With an irritated sniff, he said, "And are you going to share that information with me, or will I have to tap into my secret oracular powers, O Ambiguous One?"

"I will give you everything you need," said Gennai from a distance, "starting with this."

Daisuke's brow furrowed, but before he took another step, he felt a small tug at his shorts, and looked down.

"Hey, Daisuke," Veemon grinned up at him, full of mischief:

"Why do you smell like nattou?"

* * *

**Chapter Notes:**

1.] _tengu:_ A Japanese demon with a very long nose, usually red-skinned. Google it for cool pictures.

2.] _Yurikamome:_ The train line leading to the Odaiba area from mainland Tokyo. Generally you have to change trains to catch it, unless you're at one of the few stations it connects to. It's a very narrow train, but rather nicer than the subway.

3.] _nattou:_ Fermented soybeans. You either love it or you hate it. I… tend to hate it.

_Thanks for reading! I'm sure you can tell I've taken liberties with Babamon, who is nothing like the Babamon from Tamers. (Actually I only vaguely remember her.) Gonmon is my own creation, as far as I know. Reviews are the cheese to my macaroni!_


	10. For Every Action

_A/N: Hello kittens! I am returned to the land of cheeseburgers and Evan Lysacek. It's been a grueling few months, getting used to uni and actually doing work, writing papers, having a social life. XD But I have finally finished Chapter 10, although I almost gave up and went hara-kiri over this baby. It's gone through more revisions than any other chapter. I scrapped the beginning bit alone three times. Hopefully it's paid off, but that's your decision!_

_I want to address something more than one reader has brought up - my treatment of Yamato. Of all the characters, the one the most people have said comes off as "OOC" at times is our boy Yamato. Although I do my best to gracefully accept criticism, it was only lately that I really tried to imagine what bothered readers about him. First of all, we all have our own interpretations of the characters, but even so, I found a lot of value in reexamining Yamato as he appears in ASB. He's a hugely important part of the early plot, so I think I got distracted by setting him up for something that will happen within the next few chapters. However, the last thing I wanted was to make him seem mean or unreasonable. Yamato is a very sensitive and kind person, and maybe I haven't been conveying that well enough. This chapter I made an effort to show other sides of Yamato's personality, which I'll continue to do. I think the biggest thing that surprised me about reader response was that no one complained about Sora's portrayal - and she's the one who, when I write her, I sometimes wind up feeling like she doesn't fit my image of Sora at all! So thank you, kind readers, for giving me food for thought. Your comments really, really DO help me in the writing process!_

_Apologies for the length of this note... on to the Digi!_

* * *

**Chapter Ten**

**For Every Action**

"_At the entrance, my bare feet on the dirt floor, Here, gusts of heat; at my back, white clouds. I stare and stare. It seems I was called for this: To glorify things just because they are."  
- Czeslaw Milosz_

** Daisuke's Log  
Gennai's Residence (one of many, so I hear)  
Sector B12-something, 13:21**

**No one deserves to live in this kind of extravagance. Seriously, who needs a pink ocean? No one, that's who. All I ask for to be happy is a soccer ball, and a few packs of instant ramen, and maybe some pocky, and, well, porn; but he needs an entire ocean. Which is pink.**

**Today sucks.**

* * *

"Wow, you brought in the cavalry," said Daisuke, as he stepped through the sliding door into a long room of tatami mats and sheer rice paper windows. Immediately his fellow Chosen pinned him under their collective glare of disapproval, minus Koushirou, who sat tapping at his keyboard, and Yamato, whose disapproval read more as "Have you ever wondered how it feels to be systematically dismembered, then stitched back up to be chopped into pieces _again, _and_ again, _and_ again?"_

"I think we'll have to postpone our joyous reunion," Daisuke whispered to Veemon, whose bony arms were clamped around his leg.

His partner – who only moments earlier had been climbing up and down his body, jabbering in his ear with all the enthusiasm of an over-rested two-year-old – gave him a nervous look and waddled in solemnly on his own. Swallowing hard, Daisuke braced himself and followed.

_"Daisuke –! _Thank heaven you're okay –"

Yamato cut Hikari off almost before she began by clambering to his feet and coming around to take a fistful of Daisuke's collar. "You'd better have a _brilliant_ excuse under those goggles, kid," he growled. "We're all _so_ interested in whatever plan you and the emotionally-compromised King of Stupid managed to screw up so well."

"Yeah, Daisuke, _geez,"_ Ken added, scowling, as if Daisuke were a child occupied in banging together pots and pans.

Veemon tugged at his shorts and nodded pointedly toward the other Chosen. Daisuke raised his hands in surrender. "Okay, I screwed up. Look, Taichi-san came over at four a.m., all teary and like, in the middle of that typhoon, and just started raving! 'No one can give me any answers,' he said. 'If I don't do anything for myself I'm gonna pop a stitch.' He was going to go with or without me. I thought, if I went with him, at least I could look after him."

After that no one said anything – but Yamato's grip on Daisuke's shirt loosened, and he took it as a good sign that no one wanted to point out the salient fact that Taichi wouldn't have been able to come at _all_ if Daisuke hadn't agreed to open the gate. They all knew. That meant they understood, understood how Taichi could get, how Daisuke couldn't help himself around Taichi; understood, and were more or less willing to forgive him. In the far, far distant future. Daisuke knew both Yamato and Ken well enough that he could read their relief to see him on their faces, even though anger colored their voices.

"Okay, enough," Sora sighed, raking a hand down the back of her head. "Just, Daisuke-kun, we were all _terrified._ Let's work a little on thinking ahead from now on, alright?" Her eyes fell on Veemon, and she smiled kindly. "Hi, Veemon. It's great to see you."

Daisuke couldn't believe he was getting off this easy. They must have been really worried. "Right, that whole _think-before-you-leap_ thing…"

"Never was his forte," Veemon chimed in.

He grinned with maybe a touch of sheepishness, and most of his teammates replied in kind. Mimi in particular smiled brightly, but the frowns stayed fixed in place on Yamato and Iori.

Yamato pulled him over to the long, low table at which the other Chosen were seated, and directed him to an open _zabuton._ Daisuke took a seat between Ken and Hikari. In front of his place was a porcelain cup of vibrantly green tea. As Yamato returned to his own cushion, Gennai hobbled over to the head of the table.

Closing his laptop partway, Koushirou glanced down the table at the stoop-shouldered old man and said, "Gennai, you said you know what happened to Taichi-san." He almost sounded annoyed. "Now that Daisuke-kun has been rescued, I think it's imperative that we don't push off doing the same for Taichi-san any longer. It's been hours since he and Daisuke-kun were separated, we don't know what could have happened."

"Where _is_ he?" Sora pressed.

"Closer than you think." Gennai gestured towards the open veranda overlooking a pink sea. Squinting at the hazy horizon, Daisuke could make out rolling hills, and jagged mountain peaks that pierced through the clouds.

"The mountains?" Takeru asked skeptically. "Why would he be out there?"

"Yeah, he came here to find _you,"_ Daisuke nodded, "and he knows where you live. Why the heck would he up and decide to climb a mountain?"

"Maybe he thought you were taken there," Hikari shrugged.

"Okay, maybe, but – we started out in a forest –"

"Guys, _shh,"_ Sora broke in, eyes narrowed watchfully on Koushirou across the table.

He was peering over her shoulder, neck tense and outstretched, taking in the landscape as if it were an old lover.

"I know that place," he said slowly. "The mountains closest to Gennai's headquarters are home to Vademon."

"To who?" Daisuke turned blankly to Ken. Ken shrugged. At his side, Takeru shot to his feet.

"Then we'd better hurry," he said. His brother was already making for their packs.

Setting her teacup on its saucer, Sora unfolded her legs. "Gennai, our partners –" she said as Yamato tossed her her bag.

"Will meet you above the sea. Be careful; the environment is harsh even in peacetime."

"We should split up," Jou said, lacing his sneakers.

Sora nodded. "Groups of three or four? That good with everyone?"

She surveyed her teammates. Daisuke watched her watch them, trying to figure out when she had taken charge. He wasn't surprised that they weren't turning to him for leadership – understanding or not, no one could be particularly _happy_ with him or Taichi at the moment. But it wasn't that Sora had seized control; it was that the rest of them didn't need a Taichi or a Daisuke, specifically, but someone whose head was set firmly on their shoulders. Right now, amidst the clamor, Sora stood out like the strong willow over the lake, reaching with trembling limbs to the glassy surface to provoke ripples of movement.

Daisuke shouldered one of Jou's extra bags, feeling Sora's gaze land on him. Questioning.

Then again, maybe she wasn't so firmly-rooted at all. Was he ever? Was Taichi?

Maybe she was just recognizing a need, and answering it. Maybe it was simply that her best friend was in danger. And she was scared for him.

_We can do this,_ he told her mentally. See, he could be understanding too. He gave a cocky grin. _It's gonna be fine._

She seemed to take the hint, smiling back as she paraded the group into the garden that led to Gennai's undersea stairway. Veemon appeared by Daisuke's side.

"Feeling adventurous, kemosabe?" He stepped solidly in time with Daisuke's longer strides. Marveling, Daisuke said:

"You look like you've gotten stronger."

"All that time you spend napping in school? I use it for self-improvement. A strong mind and a strong body creates harmony." Veemon flexed his arm, hard little muscles rippling under blue-green scales. Daisuke chuckled, feeling lighter in spirit than he'd ever been over the last two weeks.

"Well put, Confucius. Better keep those things under wraps so they don't poke someone's eye," he quipped at the water's foamy edge. Gennai raised a quivering hand to the walls of the sea, which parted to unveil the winding stairs.

Their long climb commenced.

* * *

** Taichi's Log  
Mountains. Don't know when.**

** I am lost. Go me!**

** Yamato is going to have a field day when he hears.**

** Note to self: Ramen made with local water is not good for digestion.**

* * *

The sun hung high in a dome of blue as Taichi trundled through the brush. A flock of stretch-necked birds looped pitilessly around fang-like mountains wreathed in a spectral violet mist. Their shadows streaked over the rough, arid plateau like splits in the dimensional seams.

But the world was tangible enough. "Yaaugh!" Taichi cried, foot turning sharply and slipping ankle-deep into a murky yellow pond. With a curse, he yanked it forcefully out of the sludge. He backed up several paces and sat on the baked earth. The inside of his shoe felt saturated with grasshopper guts, or worse. He stripped it off along with his sock, balling up the latter and hurling it into the pond. Then he dropped his head in his hands and rocked, nails digging into his scalp.

How long would it take him to lose his grip on reality out here, with nothing but rocks for company? It hadn't been more than a few hours and already his mind was fraying at the edges. How had he managed not to snap, back when he'd been returned to Digiworld separate from the rest of the Chosen through the wormhole over Odaiba Park?

_Well, for one thing, you weren't alone then. Were you._

No, not alone. At all. Agumon had been there.

He closed his eyes against the afternoon bright, against reality. Yes, Agumon. Agumon had vanished, warping back to Digiworld without him, choosing his own world over his partner. Well, Taichi had done the same, on the day of the eclipse.

But sometimes he could still feel it, that tugging at his soul, as if some part of him were ripped. Like when MetalGreymon, Dark Spiral wound around his arm, had looked at him without recognition. Like when he'd – Taichi'd – birthed SkullGreymon with the taint of his own heart. Tearing. In the process of being torn.

He collapsed on his back, arms spread wide. Maybe this was the fulfillment of some kind of karmic debt. _Why isn't he here _now?_ Why is it like this? It's never been like this before._

The ankle throbbed where he'd turned it. A decade of soccer-related injuries told him it wasn't serious, and would pass in a few hours. His gut, though, pained him with a full ache like the matador the day after the bullfight. Daisuke must chug liquid steel along with his milk.

Daisuke was probably starving and thirsty himself. The supplies he'd insisted they pack were still in the duffel Taichi kept slung over his shoulder. Except for a couple bowls of ramen noodles and one water bottle, it was full. The separation had him too upset; he couldn't decide which way to go, and when he made the noodles he used water from a mountain stream, thinking that he should preserve as much water as possible for Daisuke…

At some point he'd been picked up by Centarumon and taken from the forest. How Centarumon had known to look for him, he couldn't begin to guess, but now he'd lost track of the cycloptic, four-legged Digimon too. And then Centarumon had decided to drop him off here, in this sun-burnt, shriveled prune of a desert, and turned and galloped off down a steep slope. It was impossible for Taichi to catch up with him or call him back.

The Fates had it in for him today.

Taichi stood up, gingerly putting pressure on his injured foot. Good, the pain was bearable. He'd scored goals with worse. But his shoe was a goner, and it was too awkward walking with only one.

So he pitched both. And took a few test steps in his bare feet over the crumbly terrain. When he was in elementary school, he used to kick off his shoes to dig his toes into the sand at Odaiba's artificial beach. Once, when his family had taken a vacation to Aomori prefecture, he'd gone for a climb along the barnacle-encrusted seaside, taking care to keep his balance as the ocean waves lapped against his forelegs. At the end of every summer the soles of his feet were leathery and dark, almost inured to pain.

The memories made him smile, a little sadly as he noticed the blister on his big toe was finally callused. Even that tiny prickling became "digitized." Whatever that meant.

The reason why he was lost in a labyrinth of mountains now filtered back. Daisuke was gone, his connection via the Internet gone – damnit, his _shoes_ were gone, and Gennai, his purpose for jaunting to Digiworld in the first place, remained as elusive as ever.

"Aaauugh!" Taichi jabbed a fist at the sky. _Releasing anger is supposed to be better than keeping it pent up._ "Yeeaaarrgh!" he added, and stomped the ground for good measure.

That started his ankle hurting again and so he staggered on in silence.

He'd decided to climb Mt. Not-So-Tremendously-Large, which loomed several miles shorter than the neighboring Mt. Tremendously-Large, because Mt. Tremendously-Large was the brawny but witless type, and Taichi had a vision of himself ending up passed out from dehydration without ever reaching the summit.

From the more benign Mt. Not-So-Tremendously-Large, he could get a bird's-eye view of the landscape, maybe determine where the heck he was. Or hail Centarumon down. _You forgot me thirty seconds after you put me down, you wool-headed sheep!_

_… I love you, Centarumon-san, sir. Pleeeease don't eat me I'm really a good person, well, every second Thursday I do something nice, anyway._

He cackled as he shimmied between slabs of stone up the rugged slope. From here it was one long obstacle course, complete with tricky passages, rocks raining from the sky, and the potential for mud slides. And monster attacks; mustn't forget monster attacks. Those were the chef's special.

At least Coach couldn't whine that he'd skipped soccer practice because he was _lazy._

* * *

He hadn't hiked twenty minutes before his first trial presented itself. With ray guns.

"What are you, exactly – a reject from _Star Trek?"_

The string-like Digimon rolled eyes the size of tennis balls towards the sky. His enormous head (how in the world did the rest of him keep it from toppling him over?) throbbed around the curves and ridges of lavender-colored (amusingly so) brain matter. Pinched lips sucked the air, collapsing what thin film of cheeks he had.

"I am Vademon," the Digimon said imperiously.

_As in Darth?_

"I was beginning to think you were going to be a no-show. Very rude, you know; if you're going to cancel an appointment you should give 24-hour's notice."

"Ah, you're that guy. The one who tried to steal Koushirou's curiosity. What a spectacular failure _that_ was, not that I really blame you. I'm not sure there _is_ an end to the amount Koushirou thinks. He's like a bottomless pit of – of thinkings." Taichi narrowed his eyes. "Wait a sec, I never made any _appointment."_

Vademon… _tentacled_ his oversized head closer. Taichi wrinkled his nose at the putrid stench wafting downwind – sulfur and a whisp of charcoal.

"I am going to activate my trap-door entrance now. Please remain where you are or I shall incinerate you."

Taichi threw a glance over his shoulder, only now noticing the conspicuous _DANGER! Turn back or you'll end up with more holes in you than swiss cheese_ and _We did warn you, sucker! _signs jutting out from crevices in the rocks. He _had_ to learn to take a hint. "Couldn't you just say, 'You shall not pass!' or ask about the air-speed velocity of swallows, or something?" he asked with a longsuffering sigh.

Then he ran for his life.

_Dammit, Daisuke! Dammit, Gennai! I just wanted an answer. Just one, measly answer – am I going to – will I be – heck with this, just damn it all!_

Up was not an option; and as bright beams from Vademon's ray gun whizzed past him, down didn't seem like such a fantastic recourse either. Behind him the ground was rapidly dissolving, opening a deep black hole in its wake. The soles of his feet smarted as he propelled himself over a tricky barricade of sand-blasted boulders, relying on his arms to support his weight. He crashed down gracelessly on his back.

_Yep,_ Taichi thought to himself as he felt the earth tremble and shatter beneath his fingers. _This is absolutely the best day ever!_

His laughter was lost on the air as the gaping maw took him.

* * *

** Yamato's Log  
Mt. Iwakaze, 500 meter mark  
14:11**

**Since separating into groups we've hiked for a little over an hour and are about halfway up the mountain. Koushirou is unsure which mountain is Vademon's haunt, but I don't think it's this one. From what I remember it was bigger and beastlier.**

**Takeru, I think I have your bag.**

* * *

**Takeru's Log  
Mt. Toone, I hate numbers  
14:15**

**Shoot. Yeah, and I've got yours. Just wondering, when were you planning on reading **_**Rolling Stone**_** during this expedition, on the can…?**

**Well, this mountain ended at an impasse, so we're coming back down the way we came. Will continue search on Mt. Senrei.**

* * *

** Jou's Log  
Mt. Yahaba**

** You packed reading material?**

* * *

** Yamato's Log  
Mt. Iwakaze**

** Koushirou brought his computer.**

* * *

** Koushirou's Log  
Mt. Iwakaze**

** It's a practical way to store all our data and keep in touch with each other and Gennai.**

* * *

** Yamato's Log  
Mt. Iwakaze**

** Why the frick are you emailing me when I'm three feet in front of you?**

* * *

"Hikari-chan, come here a sec – do you recognize these?" Sora picked up the abandoned sock and shoe, swallowing around the clench in her throat that told her she didn't need Hikari to figure out who the owner was. Cerulean on white; egotistically large Lotto logo; toe cap scuffed to the extent that the outer membrane had all but worn off.

Hikari doubled back, Gatomon padding after her, leaving Takeru and Miyako at the base of Mt. Toone. Her eyes lit up once she caught sight of the shoe. "That's Oniichan's!"

Sora nodded, turning the shoe over. Unzipping her backpack, she stuffed it inside and then, frustrated, puffed hair out of her face. "Great. This tells us nothing, except that now Taichi's alone, unable to contact us, and barefoot."

Hikari's face fell. "… But at least now we know he came this way."

"We already knew that." Sora pressed two fingers to the bridge of her nose. "I was hoping for a better clue than this – a message, a trail of breadcrumbs, _something –"_

She broke off, noticing Hikari's far away look, the sudden, almost untraceable deepening of her frown. _Try not to forget about the victims at home,_ she berated herself, and slipped a comforting arm around Hikari's shoulders.

"Look, it's going to be okay. Taichi'd outlast all of us on his own just out of sheer bull-headedness to prove he could." The brunette smiled a bit at that. "– How's Miyako-chan doing?"

"Better." Hikari unclasped her barrette, pocketed it, and curled her fingers in Gatomon's velvety fur. "Takeru-kun's helping her ice her knee."

"She's just tired," Gatomon added, purring into Hikari's palm.

Sora nodded, petting Hikari's hair idly. "It's been a while since we did anything this rigorous," she agreed, masking her doubt – after all, they hadn't even climbed 100 meters before the dangerous trail forced them to turn back. Miyako was seriously out of shape, and that could drag the rest of the team down.

But thinking that way wouldn't help anyone. They were a team. "Okay. Mt. Senrei is over there, the cloudy one – Biyomon, Hawkmon, can I ask you to do recon?"

The two airborne Digimon swooped away, Hawkmon making one last worried circle above Miyako before she shooed him off. She stood up herself a moment later, taking a few wobbly steps, her pants bunched up awkwardly above her knees. Takeru trailed after her, Patamon settled on his mop of wind-blown hair.

"Okay," Miyako announced, "I'm ready to kick some mountain butt!"

"Good." Sora smiled. No matter what, they could always count on Miyako's enthusiam. "Well, when they get back, we'll see how high we can climb."

"I'm still not thrilled with this plan." Takeru fed Patamon pieces of a granola bar, staring unhappily at Mt. Senrei, their ubiquitous, stern, blue-robed observer. "Climb mountains, wait for Vademon to spring his usual trap – is that even a plan? Seems like we're leaving a lot to luck."

Sora studied him without seeming to. With his expressive brow and lucid, care-filled blue eyes, Takeru was not a hard person to read if you knew where to look. But he was still more private than a lot of guys Sora knew. Kind of like his brother, actually, though Takeru was far less of a loose cannon. She flattered herself that she knew him pretty well. For instance, right at this moment, it was obvious to her that more than just the plan had him worried, and she was positive she knew what it was. But all she could do without alarming the girls was to be reassuring:

"We are, but it's our best option, given the circumstances. Taichi's not responding to emails. If we _are_ lucky, our Digivices will ID him before we run into any unsavory types of Digimon."

"Maybe Vademon moved," Patamon suggested. "Gabumon, Tentomon and I couldn't agree about the right mountain, so…"

"It's possible," Sora admitted.

"Do you think –" Takeru cut himself off, biting his lip. "Maybe Sei… Hosoda and those guys are involved with this?"

There it was. "The Spore Children?" She tried to sound surprised that he'd brought up the subject. "Why would they be?"

"Oniichan came here on his own. Well, with Daisuke-kun's help," Hikari added.

With a shrug, Takeru bent forward and busied himself with adjusting the strap to his backpack. "I don't know." His voice came through muffled by his shirtsleeve. "I just – Gennai warned us about them, so they must be up to something."

"I'm sure they are, but we're wasting time theorizing about it now," Sora replied, taking extra care to sound gentle. "Our mission is to find Taichi, give him an earful for making us worry and for upsetting his sister, beat any baddies and go home," she went on, and paused to gauge his reaction.

He dipped his head in a noncommittal nod, neck still strained toward the hazy mountaintops. She understood his fear. His first time out in a week and a half, and he was spending it in Digiworld, with a D3 he wasn't entirely sure would function perfectly despite Koushirou's assurances. They never had followed up with the Spore Children, and that had to be gnawing at him – he'd been robbed, and come nearer to losing what was more important to all of them than ever before –

That his thoughts would be centered on Hosoda Seiki and his motives was more than understandable.

Sora made a gesture and headed off in the direction of the mountain just as Hawkmon and Biyomon reappeared, swerving in around the left slope. The rest followed her, somber as a triad of pallbearers, the Digimon just as affected by the grim atmosphere.

Miyako brought up the rear, letting her arms droop limply at her sides. "Can't we just skip to the 'go home' part? My feet need either a soak or to be amputated, I don't care which anymore."

* * *

** Jou's Log  
Mt. Yahaba**

** Is the **_**Rolling Stone**_** a recent issue? Can I borrow it from you?**

* * *

** Takeru's Log  
Mt. Senrei**

** Also don't crush the trail mix in the front pocket. It's for emergencies. And the pencils in there will poke at you, like pincers.**

* * *

** Yamato's Log  
Mt. Iwakaze**

** Ate it already. Sorry.**

* * *

** Takeru's Log  
Mt. Senrei**

** Stabbity-stab.**

* * *

** Sora's Log  
Mt. Senrei**

** YOU ARE SLOWING US ALL DOWN. STOP IM-ING OR AFTER THIS IS SETTLED I WILL HACK YOUR COMPUTERS AND INSTALL FRIGHTENING, NOISY, BUBBLEGUM PINK SCREENSAVERS. Don't think I don't know how. I know your passwords haven't changed since sixth year.**

* * *

** Mimi's Log  
Mt. Iwakaze**

** That doesn't sound too horrible to me.**

* * *

726 meters up Mt. Iwakaze, circumstances began to seem grim.

The pass leading to the summit, narrow from the start, was now little more than a cleft between the craggy faces of the mountainside, with a makeshift staircase of broken and unstable rock running through it. To make matters worse, there had been a recent rainfall that had coated the ground in thick mud like icing on a cake. Despite that, they'd been reasonably assured of their footing, until now.

Yamato took one look at the trail, then glanced back at his teammates – Koushirou with his computer slung over his back, Mimi with her manicured nails. Both of them were fully capable of climbing mountains, and had done so before. But neither of them were experienced enough to handle _this._

_Even I don't want to try,_ he mused, chewing his lip and staring at the path, as if looking hard enough would lead him to a less dangerous route. _We don't have the right equipment, and we're relying on our digivices for maps… and the old model digivice makes a less-than-perfect GPS._

Decision made, he tore his gaze away from the mountain. The look on his face must have said everything, because Koushirou began to turn around before Yamato had a chance to say a word.

"We can't make it past here. It's too dangerous. Let's go back."

Disappointed, Mimi frowned at him. "What? After we've come so far?"

"Look at it, Mimi-chan. You wanna try navigating that – that – disaster waiting to happen?" Pointing at a large slab of rock clenched between two smaller rocks and a mound of mud, he added, "How would you suggest we get around that? We'd need gear. The others would end up having to come rescue _us_ as well as Taichi."

"Okay," Mimi sighed. She lowered herself to the ground. "But having to just give up depresses me. I need to sit down for a sec."

"We haven't taken a break in a while," Koushirou acquiesced. "Yamato-san, toss me my water?"

The three Chosen spread out on an outcropping. Yamato divvied out bottled water and wrapped Milky candies. Tugging at her worn, dirt-stained climbing gloves, Mimi said:

"I hope Palmon and the others aren't having any trouble."

"They're more likely to make it out of this in one piece than we are," Yamato laughed. Earlier they'd sent Gabumon and Palmon out riding on Kabuterimon, having had the ingenious idea to survey the mountain range from the sky. They had yet to rendezvous, which was going to be a problem now that the Chosen had no choice but to return to the base.

"You know a lot about this stuff, Yamato-san."

Yamato grunted. "Mountaineering is a hobby of mine." A hobby he'd neglected lately, if he were honest with himself. "This past year I've climbed Mt. Sanbe, Mt. Hayachine, and Mt. Shichimen." None of those were particularly impressive feats, but Koushirou and Mimi were staring at him with mouths in perfect circles.

"Geez." Mimi yawned and stretched her legs. "We hiked mountains in elementary school. Remember? That was my last time."

"Then there was Infinity Mountain." Yamato's lips quirked in a half-moon smile.

"Remember how you and Taichi-san fought over whether or not we should climb it?" Koushirou said, also with a grin. "Jou-san had to referee."

"But it was Sora-san who was more effective," Mimi said, and then gave a squeak. With a sidelong glance at Yamato, she gathered a handful of hair and began nervously working out the tangles.

He couldn't help feeling annoyed. "Look, I'm not going to bite you at the mere mention of Sora. She and I aren't on the best of terms right now, but we're still friends."

"Okay."

"We barely ever see each other," Yamato plunged on, trying without much success to keep the heat out of his voice. "We only fought earlier because we're so out of synch. And I'd appreciate it if everyone would stop painting me as this terrible, unfeeling nutjob."

"All I said was 'okay,'" Mimi muttered. She turned her back to him, making a show of recapping her water bottle.

Koushirou glanced between the two of them; then, apparently deciding such matters were beyond a techie's area of expertise, got to his feet.

"We should start back. I've sent an email to the others telling them we'll tackle Tatsumidake next."

Gathering his pack, Yamato hiked ahead, fuming. How long had it been since he and Sora broke up – over a year? Almost two? And yet everyone, _everyone_ lumped them together, like they were kite strings, caught in a tree. When, really, he and Sora had never been farther apart. In distance _or_ in heart. Damn straight he was frustrated.

_You've got a loose definition of "frustrated," man._

He picked up the pace, shaking the sinister voice out of his head. That route was best left untraveled. Time to focus. Think about Taichi – who was going to get it swift in the jaw, just as soon as they hauled his sorry butt out of Vademon's trap.

He was so engrossed in mentally punching his best friend that when Koushirou skittered down next to him and plucked his sleeve, he almost lost his balance in the mud-slick earth.

"What?" he snapped, and instantly felt a wave of remorse. _Relax, Ishida – you aren't angry with either of them._ Who he _was_ angry with – that was the real mystery. "Do you see something?" he asked with a better reign on his emotions.

Koushirou shook his head, black eyes wary under his creased brow. "Maybe… Did you notice that before?"

"Notice what? – The sign?"

Koushirou nodded, and Yamato took a second look at the dilapidated road sign posted by an odd, dog-shaped boulder. "No, I think I'd remember that if I saw it."

"There were signs like this one all over the place when Vademon captured me," Koushirou said.

Yamato raised his brow. "Koushirou, it's got one of Newton's laws of motion – _'For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.'"_

"Those signs could lead us right to Taichi-san."

"And look, another one over there, it says, _'You've got dirt on your nose.'"_

"Yamato-san, since when has Digiworld ever made sense?"

"Coming from you, that's like a plea of insanity," Mimi said, sidling over to the boys. She rested her hands on each of their arms. "But if you think it means Vademon's nearby…"

Still doubtful, Yamato surveyed the downhill path. "This isn't where I remember meeting up with you, back then."

"Gennai warned us that Vademon relocates. Anyway, the place I escaped through was different from the entrance. Vademon's world could be a 'verse unto itself, for all we know."

"Wow. That's heavy. Well then… we go this way," Mimi said, starting forth. Her hiking shoes made squelching sounds in the mud.

"Could be a trap," Yamato said with a resigned sigh.

"It's almost definitely a trap," Koushirou agreed, "but it's also our only choice."

"On the other hand, we shouldn't rush in without telling Gabumon and the others," Yamato said.

They turned glumly towards the rundown sign. Yamato's ears strained to hear the low buzz of Kabuterimon's wings. As if the Digimon would appear at their heart's call. Yamato wasn't sure why he suddenly felt like laughing.

He clenched his jaw. "I'll go. You two stay here and wait."

Their looks of astonishment were exactly as he'd pictured.

"You can't just wander off alone! That's a recipe for – for –"

"– stupid! The chances you'll get taken will double!"

"Someone has to go," Yamato protested, impatiently sweeping back his hair. "On the off-chance that Taichi is, you know, not okay."

"But –" Mimi broke off as Koushirou put out his hand. He held Yamato's gaze steadily.

"You're just a scout. If you get the slightest inkling of danger –"

"I'll retreat right away." Yamato promised, grateful for Koushirou's logical brain. Still he found himself wishing Gabumon were at his side. "Wish me luck," he said, and picked his way off the trail.

* * *

** Elsewhere**

"You know what I forgot to pack? Deodorant. That all-important exterminator of man-smell… Dang. Not that, y'know, I have any _problem_ with man-smell, none in particular. But, yeesh, girls sure do. Like if you so much as raise your arms, they go, 'Oh, enormous tufts of armpit hair, how disgusting,' and if you happen to be an athlete or the type who works out, they're all over you for being ripped but as soon as you get on a first name basis with them it's, 'Can't you shower more often?' or 'I don't want to hug you right after you leave the weight room.' Y'know, I don't expect my girlfriend to always smell of jasmine and rose petals, but I am pro-cleanliness. I'm a guy, not a mutant sewer-dweller. Turns out that if those medieval folk had just practiced better hygiene, the bubonic plague might've killed fewer people. But still, I mean, I'd like it if a girl appreciated my natural scent, my _eau du Taichi._ That would be swell.

"Geez. I just said swell. Like I'm Ricky-fricking-Ricardo. I bet no one complained about _his_ smell. Aw, stuff it, he probably _marinated_ in a cologne jacuzzi.

"Man, c'mon. I'm sitting here prattling like a loon and you still won't talk. The least you could do is help me out with conversation topics, Cherry Cheeks. I'm not Koushirou, I can't amuse myself with yoga or a koan. I don't _get_ koan anyway. Which is probably why I'm not a Zen monk. If I were I'd be living in a temple somewhere deep-country and definitely wouldn't be here, right now, since I hear reclusive religious sects generally aren't too keen on the digital age. By the way, has anyone ever told you you look like a fish?

"Are you trying to quiet me to death? 'Cause it won't work. I can keep myself entertained for a long, looooong time. I've got tons of stories. I'm just like Scherezade, only prettier. Let's see, there was the time I threw up in Sora's hat – now that one never gets old –

"What are you _doing_ to me, exactly?

"… Swell."

* * *

** Mt. Yahaba  
800 meter mark  
15:30**

Raidramon lifted his snout into the air, sniffing thoughtfully. Leaning forward from his perch on the armored Digimon's back, Daisuke gave his partner's head a pat.

"What is it, pal?"

Raidramon hesitated. "Rain," he snarled at last. "I smell rain."

Stingmon descended to hover beside them. Ken was perched on his shoulders, arms wrapped around his ink green helmet. "Thunderheads are approaching us at an alarming rate," Stingmon said. "I'd say we'd better prepare ourselves for a wet return trip."

As Raidramon took another deep whiff of the air, Daisuke's nostrils flared reflexively. He caught Ken's eye, and saw him nod towards Jou and Iori, employed in refilling their water bottles at an underground lake Digmon had found. Giving Raidramon a nudge with his heel, Daisuke trotted towards them and stopped just short of the hole.

"Guys, it's gonna rain. Looks like we're gonna have to turn back too, just like the others."

Jou squinted at the sky, suddenly a solid dome of slate. The thick lenses of his glasses were streaked with grime. He sighed.

"Ain't your day, huh," said Gomamon, splashing around in the basin.

Jou reached down and lifted his partner out of the water. "Definitely not. My day would include way more textbooks."

_"My_ day would include more hot babes in grass skirts, and a never-ending pitcher of peach-and-ice-cream smoothie," Daisuke declared.

Ken and Iori gawked at him, mystified.

"I like ice cream," Raidramon offered.

Digmon and Stingmon nodded their approval, while Gomamon settled himself cozily in Jou's arms. He gave a satisfied purr as his eyes slipped shut.

"Disgusting," said Jou obliquely.

The first drops fell while they were in the middle of their descent, followed by an ominous clap of thunder. The charged air crackled as if agitated. Daisuke felt the hairs on the back of his neck practically quiver in anticipation.

Thirty feet from the mountain's base, as Raidramon's paws began to sink deeper into the mobile earth with each step, Daisuke spotted a large, shadowy figure prowling among the rock formations. Although he couldn't make out more than a vague outline, the creature's movements reminded him of a lioness he'd once seen at Ueno Zoo, wandering the rim of the exhibit with her yellow eyes trained on the raucous spectators, as if she were imagining various methods to dismember them and eat them if only she could break through the bars.

"Ken," Daisuke hissed, tilting his body to the side.

"I see it," his best friend whispered back, bony arms and shoulders tense as violin chords. Blue eyes, as piercing and precise as a hawk's, zeroed in on the hulking form below them. "Definitely feline – there's something glinting on its body, maybe armor like Raidramon's – but at least four times larger," he said.

"I hope it's on our side," Jou murmured from his seat behind Daisuke.

"We have to go near it?" Iori said uncertainly. "Maybe we should fly away."

Daisuke shook his head. Holding out a hand, he gestured for the group to pause. "Something that big isn't going to be inhibited by our flying away. It's probably got some long range attack, or a field dampening skill. We'd better prepare for a fight."

Packed tightly together, taking slow, cautious steps, the group clambered down the hillside with Raidramon in the lead. Daisuke could feel Jou's breath on his neck, coming in short, moist clouds. They approached the skulking creature just as the skies let loose a mighty downpour.

"Who are you?" Daisuke shouted above the gale, but could barely make out his own words. He moved his hands from Raidramon's horn to his shoulder blades as the horn surged with electric energy. "We come in peace," he added, and Jou, the only one within hearing range, gave his arm a hard pinch.

Then Digmon shuffled over and crouched next to Raidramon. "He's comin' closer," the beetle-like Digimon said. "Gomamon, think y'oughta digivolve about now."

With a glance at his partner, Gomamon wriggled out of Jou's grasp and slithered to the ground. A moment later, Ikkakumon towered in his place, thick, off-white fur already matted with rivulets of water. The light of evolution caught their opponent's interest, and suddenly he bounded up the slope, with more speed and agility than Daisuke would have dreamed in a beast that size. In mere seconds he was upon them, striped, moon white fur streaming in the wind, yawning jaw bared with dagger-sharp teeth, a spiked iron ring clasped to his whip-like tail. Three tall spikes pointed skyward out of his back; his claws shined like diamonds as lightning flashed overhead. The armor on his head and paws seemed more decorative than necessary; two sets of vibrant orange eyes peered at the party of Chosen through four rhomboid slits.

He raised one paw, far larger than Raidramon's head, and brought it down like a sledgehammer on the Chosen. Raidramon and Digmon took the brunt of the blow, staggering to either side in a daze. After dropping Ken off, Stingmon bolted to the sky and unsheathed a spike radiating energy. He dove straight for the tiger-like Digimon, only to be slapped hard enough to send him careening to the ground.

Ikkakumon bounded between the Digimon and the unprotected Chosen, firing off a set of six missiles. They struck the tiger's torso, exploding on impact, just as Digmon drilled into the space below its belly. With a howl of pain, the Digimon shrank back. Stingmon took the opportunity to dart over and grab Raidramon's horn.

"Time to bring out the big guns," he said to Daisuke and Ken.

Ken set his mouth grimly; Daisuke gave them a curt nod. "Do it," he said, and locked digivices with Ken.

* * *

Jou's pants were bogged down with sludge up to his knees. "Iori-kun!" he yelled, spotting Iori doubled over behind two rocks the size of mulberry bushes, arms wrapped around his knees. Shouldering his pack, Jou trudged through the slap of wind and rain, making his way steadily to the youngest Chosen's side.

"Are you hurt?" he murmured gently, kneeling down and putting a hand on Iori's back.

Iori hesitated, then reluctantly opened his hands. Jou sucked in his breath; the skin on Iori's palms and elbows was torn and bleeding, almost ripped off completely in some areas. "That looks like fun," he said lightly, giving the wounds a critical inspection.

"For some, I suppose. Personally, I'd rather take a cruise through the Caribbean," Iori said, raising his chin stiffly.

Jou smiled. Iori's infamous willpower, his maturity in the face of danger or pain, never ceased to amaze him. "I'm with you," he said, unzipping his duffel and retrieving his first aid kit. He rummaged around for antiseptic and gauze.

Meanwhile the battle raged around them. Paildramon emerged like a titan, armed, armored, and yet somehow seeming to meet their enemy like an unprotected peninsula at the brink of a hurricane. Jou's heart drilled inside his chest as he dressed Iori's arms, barely able to see beyond the veil of rain. His body temperature had shot from summer warm to shivering in mere minutes. They'd all be nursing chills and runny noses for a few days.

Paildramon released his cannon early, apparently deciding this was one battle best ended quickly. Long bullets of energy burst from his arms, sending a torrrent of water and rock-strewn earth crashing into his opponent. The force was enough to knock Jou and Iori on their sides; from a distance, they saw Digmon shield Ken and Daisuke with his solid exoskeletal shell.

"Did they win?" Jou heard himself ask, almost as a reflex. Even to himself he sounded embarrassingly hopeful.

"That can't be the end of it," Iori demurred, with a knowing shake of his head.

Standing guard about twenty feet from their hideout was Ikkakumon, claws planted deep into the ground, missiles at the ready. His entire underside was now smeared in a blend of yellow and brown. Suddenly he went rigid from end to end.

"Paildramon!" he roared. Jou's heart skipped a beat, then raced – there had been a definite note of panic in Ikkakumon's voice – and also warning –

The tiger erupted out of the debris, claws outstretched, mouth wide open. _"Kongou!"_ came the war cry, and a wave of pure power emitted from the formidable jaw. It struck Paildramon dead on, but instead of toppling over or spiraling into the air, his body appeared only to jerk backwards. Then he went still, even as energy pounded into him. When at last the blast subsided, and they could see through the clouds of dust, the Chosen met with a sight beyond any they could have predicted:

From head to toe, smooth and shining, Paildramon's body was encased in a suit of cold, unblemished metal.

_Like a terrible knight,_ Jou couldn't help thinking. Paildramon appeared frozen in time, his unseeing eyes trained upward.

Ikkakumon let loose a howl. Daisuke and Ken were running to their partner. The tiger took three great leaps and halted with his teeth at Ikkakumon's throat, the long, knife-like teeth grazing him cutaneously.

"Ikakku –!" Jou shrieked. His bag spilled to the ground.

_"Take a moment to think, human," _thundered a voice that seemed to come at him from every side. _"Either you call off your companions, or I tear off his head."_

Chilled from the inside out, Jou felt his knees going weak. Frantically he scrounged for the nearest boulder to keep himself upright and took several deep, gasping breaths. _Damn – asthma – Gomamon – why now, of all times –_

He felt something pressed into his palm – his inhaler. Iori slipped in front of him, raising his bandaged arms above his head like the goalpost at a football stadium.

"We surrender!" he shouted. Jou winced; Iori didn't have a naturally strong voice like Taichi or Daisuke. Yet the Digimon seemed to hear _him._ "Digmon, stand down," Iori commanded his partner.

Digmon rolled an eye on the beast, and looked as if he might protest. But common sense won out over battle-lust. He de-digivolved into Armadillomon and scampered to Iori's side.

Slowly, the tiger removed his teeth from Ikkakumon's throat. Jou immediately cried for Ikkakumon to de-evolve, but predictably, Ikkakumon had to out-stubborn Digmon. With a low growl, he aimed his horn at the Digimon and prepared another missle to launch.

Just as it was about to go off, the tiger swept his paw into the air. It crashed down directly on top of Ikkakumon's skull, but the horn didn't pierce through flesh. Instead, Jou watched in horror as Ikkakumon's horn shattered into dust, right down to the root, and, disintegrating, fell away.

_"No!"_ Jou dropped to his knees. Ikkakumon wavered, cross-eyed, then started to collapse, suffused with light as he transformed into Gomamon. Raindrops pattered on the small, limp form like bullets. With a strangled cry, Jou shot to Gomamon's side and gathered his partner in his arms.

Daisuke and Ken were huddled beneath the immense metallic statue that was Paildramon, fear bright in the whites of their eyes.

The Digimon approached again, tail lashing restlessly in his wake.

_"I am Baihumon,"_ came the chilling psychic voice. _"I now lay claim on all of you for the West."_

Then he raised his head and roared above the rain, above the thunder. Iori, staunchly positioned in front of Jou, never so much as flinched. His eyes were unlike anything Jou had ever seen – trembling green flames.

But he, Jou – he didn't have time for any overpowered, tyrannical monsters to wail at the sky. Gomamon, cradled in his arms, had blood tracing down his round, made-for-smiles face. His partner had been seriously injured. And now there was no one left to protect them.

* * *

** Somewhere near Mt. Iwakaze  
Mid-afternoon**

Slathers of rain pelted Yamato's wild mountain pass, forming brown rivers that snaked between gaps in the rocks, making his hand and footholds too slippery for a firm grip. _This is probably the point where I should be turning back,_ Yamato thought, lips set in a grim line.

He imagined Koushirou's thick eyebrows furrowed in reproach, Mimi's admonishing shrieks. He imagined meeting up with Sora, white-faced, just as bedraggled and dirty as he but for some reason making a bigger fuss over _his_ condition than her own. The constricting, warm, not altogether unwanted feeling that surfaced at that image rocked him, and he quickly shoved it to the back of his mind.

He knew he should turn back. Soon the trail would be more of a danger to him than running into a hungry Kuwagamon, or a territorial Monochromon, without any backup. Here he risked mud slides, rock slides – or simply falling, spraining his ankle and losing the ability to return at all.

But, at the same time, he couldn't help thinking – he was _so close._ The signs had grown more and more abundant as he'd pressed on, until he could almost sense the walls of Vademon's domain closing in on him. Taichi was out there still. His best friend, with Vademon, in the storm – and he, Yamato, was in a position to rescue him. Or at least to send enough information back to their friends that they could come out here and rescue both of them. Risk was nothing unfamiliar to any of the Chosen. And it had been a long time since he'd felt – since he'd felt needed.

Another uncomfortable thought, which he packed away just as soon as it made itself known. Taking a deep breath, Yamato scrambled over a rugged rock the size of a minivan, digging his feet into the deep grooves and impressions to hoist himself up. His clothes were soaked through. Given a week, you'd still be able to squeeze water out of him.

Straining the muscles in his arms, Yamato pulled himself to the top of the boulder and peered out. Muted dove-gray blanketed the world below, the rest of his trail almost lost in a ghostly shroud. He wiped his arm uselessly across his brow. Beyond a steep downward pathway, he could just make out the shimmering, dark outline of what looked to be a hole. A hole that could go only one place.

_Turn back!_ yelled the signs, terrified. _Danger, Will Robinson! Get out before it's too late! What's taters, precious?_

Gingerly Yamato maneuvered his slender body to the boulder's opposite side, and tried to lower himself to the ground. He lost his grip almost immediately and plummeted into the gorge. A dozen good-sized rocks jabbed into his shoulders and back. The world spun; he felt sore absolutely everywhere.

_Taichi._

"Taichi…"

"… not here," said a rumbling, familiar voice. "Quick, grab on; let's get out of here before you hurt yourself any worse."

"Garu… rumon," Yamato gasped, amazed at his own scratchy voice. _Taichi – if I get a cold and can't sing because of you –_ He looked up into Garurumon's sensitive amber eyes, ferocious on first glance, but filled with concern. Garurumon nudged him onto his side with his soft nose, and Yamato sat up the rest of the way. Knotting his fingers in Garurumon's hide, he pulled himself off the ground, then swung a leg over Garurumon's back.

"Let's join the others," Garurumon said, prepared to leap. "They're gathering at ground-level."

"No," Yamato protested. He gave one of Garurumon's odd plumes a weary tug. "Look, I'm only bruised, and we're so close. I can see the entrance. Just down there, that shadowy bit."

"Yamato." Garurumon sounded about as annoyed as Yamato had ever heard. "You're in no condition –"

"Garurumon, this is our _chance,"_ he said desperately, rainwater running into and out of his open mouth. "Taichi is in there. Who knows what's being done to him – we can't leave now!" When Garurumon kept silent, Yamato persisted: "You want to bring Taichi back to Agumon, right?"

He knew at once he'd hit his partner's weak spot. Agumon and Gabumon were, likely enough, closer friends than Taichi and Yamato themselves. They had a rapport not unlike Veemon's and Wormmon's, slightly altered by experience. Garurumon's snout kept turning back in the direction the hole, as if it were pulling him downhill.

They had to do this. How could they not? "They'd do it for us," Yamato said, and this time, when Garurumon failed to answer, knew he'd won. So he pushed his heels lightly against Garurumon's thighs. "Let's go."

His partner didn't need any more urging. Together they bounded down the water-slick slope, Garurumon's padded paws making light work of what would have been a grueling climb for Yamato alone.

As they neared the mouth of the hole, one of Garurumon's hind legs knocked into a brick red road sign, bending it into a right angle. _If you'll believe in me, I'll believe in you,_ it said.

"Finally, one that's actually appropriate," Yamato said, and rode Garurumon into the tunnel.

* * *

**Chapter Notes:**

1.] _zabuton _(座布団): A traditional Japanese cushion. There is a one-character difference between _futon_ (traditional bedding; 布団) and _zabuton,_ and that character means "seat."

2.] _Milky candies:_ Hard candies with a distinctive dairy flavor. It's not my favorite treat in the world but you gotta love its slogan: "Milky – mama no aji" or "Milky – the taste of mama."

3.] _Lost in Space; The Lord of the Rings_

4.] _If you'll believe in me, I'll believe in you_: Lewis Caroll's _Through the Looking Glass._

_Thanks as always for reading, kits! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. It means a lot to me to know people are reading/commenting. Constructive criticism is always welcome, and let me know if you're not following the plot; I may need to start providing background info as the story progresses. Keep it real! ~Fizz_


	11. Several Deadly Promises

_A/N: YES! It's an update. Unbelievable, I know. I would like to apologize many, many times over for the unforgivably long time I was absent, but let's get into the story first. Assuming anyone's still reading. If you are, HELLO! I love you, I'm sorry, please enjoy ASB chapter 11!_

_Small changes have been made: I'm no longer going to use those annoying asterisks, but I'll continue to put footnotes at the end of each chapter. Also, the whole "Ya. Ta. Log" thing was obnoxious, I can't believe no one complained, from now on people will just say "Taichi's Log" like normal human beings._

_Special thanks to all you lovely reviewers who stuck by me in the past, to newcomers giving this fic a shot; to Benign User for catching a discrepancy that I sadly can't fix without some serious rewriting but will be aware of in the future; and to those of you who prompted me to update during my hiatus… I don't deserve you._

_BRIEF RECAP: Taichi, panicking over his digitization and against Gennai's rule, went to Digiworld with Daisuke. The others followed to rescue him. Daisuke was attacked by Babamon and Gonmon and separated from Taichi. Taichi was abducted by Vademon. Gennai reunited the Chosen with their partners and they split up in search of Taichi. Daisuke, Ken, Iori and Jou's group was then attacked by Baihumon. Also, remember that a couple chapters back, Taichi had a dream/memory involving Ichijouji Osamu._

* * *

**Chapter Eleven**

**Several Deadly Promises**

"_Fire will be found by  
Birds that fly too high  
And all his feathers burn  
And he'll fall down and die."  
- Louis de Bernieres, _Birds Without Wings

** Yamato's Log  
In what we hope is Vademon's tunnel  
15:56**

** It's a strange thing to hope for.**

* * *

Inside the tunnel, the ground squelched like fat slugs beneath Garurumon's paws, thick with slime. Yamato felt tension ripple through his partner's lithe body, saw the sharp eyes glint like gold as they flickered uneasily about the passage.

At times, the walls widened large enough for shallow pools of murk to collect. At others, Garurumon had to pull his shoulders and hind legs in as much as he could to squeeze through the narrowing tunnel throat. Tired, saddle-sore and coated in grime, Yamato kept his fingers curled around Garurumon's fur and dug his knees into his partner's sides as they navigated the twisting path. He could only be grateful he was still upright on Garurumon's back, and that Garurumon's stamina outlasted his own by leaps and bounds. At least the cavernous walls sheltered them from the spectral wind that had chased them inside. Yamato combed back his disheveled hair and felt something warm and wet splash his face.

"Ugh." With a grimace, he wiped his cheek and rubbed his hand against his jeans.

"What?" growled Garurumon, his friendly concern mismatched with his thundercloud voice. But for Yamato it was, and had always been, a familiar comfort.

"Nothing – something's dripping –"

Garurumon paused, flicking his tail, and lifted his snout to give the air a wary sniff. His eyes lit on something above them, beyond Yamato's range of vision. He rumbled low in his throat, and Yamato nervously adjusted his grip on the sinewy shoulders.

"Ah, they're all along the ceiling," Garurumon said, lowering his voice, "tacked to it like cocoons. They're what's dripping, and they reek."

Yamato squinted, trying to spot what had Garurumon so tense. He could just barely make out the globular lumps shimmering on the ceiling, too smooth to be stalactites, pulsing with liquid. "What are they?" he hissed.

"Viral eggs," Garurumon said. "Don't want those to hatch – we'll go quietly."

Viral eggs. That was a sure enough sign – as if the slime, lack of light, and general creepiness weren't enough of a tip off – that they were heading toward evil.

They went on, the only sounds Garurumon's broad paws slapping against the earth and the eerie shifting noises from above. The cold seeped right through Yamato's jacket. It felt as if they were going uphill, and he wondered how far they'd come. He opened his mouth to ask, but remembered the eggs and closed it abruptly.

Then Garurumon's forelegs slipped into an unseen pool. It was deeper than the others, deep enough that Garurumon couldn't keep Yamato above water without swimming. Yamato hooked his legs over Garurumon's back, trying to keep as dry as possible while his partner paddled them through the pool.

But thankfully Garurumon moved as smoothly as a river otter through the pool, and their swim ended almost as soon as it began. Garurumon trudged onto solid ground, the fur on his belly discolored and beaded with drops of water. He snapped twice at the air so that his jowls rippled, and shook his head a few times before starting off again.

"We left the eggs behind," Yamato noticed.

"You can tell?" His partner sounded amused.

"Well, I can't _see_ much, if that's what you mean. But I could kind of make out shapes before. And I think they were sort of glowing."

"You're right, the eggs don't continue past the pond. It's drier up here, too."

"So we are going uphill," Yamato said.

"The trail didn't feel very steep in the beginning, but it must have led underground and taken us below the mountain. Now we're climbing up within it. The rock feels different beneath my paws."

Yamato wondered it would be like to feel the stones' substance change. Maybe because Koushirou had mentioned it earlier, or maybe because he was now walled in by rock on all sides, he fell into a memory, to the night they spent at the foot of Infinity Mountain.

He saw the cave they slept in, the jagged walls, the hot springs, the mountain peak shooting like a ladder into the clouds. His friends' faces were clear, from the pink burn on Sora's cheeks and shoulders to the grassy smudges staining Taichi's little-boy knob-knees. Jou with his sweater vest rolled up so he could rub his glasses clean with the hem of his shirt. Mimi's overly zealous pink hat. They were dirty, always, all of them. Koushirou crouched low, drawing something in the earth with a stick while Tentomon looked on and asked questions. Takeru, charming when he was a child, charming on the brink of adulthood, held Mimi in his power with some animated story no one else could really follow, and she listened indulgently, one of the rare instances in those days that she would focus entirely on someone else; she was always good with Takeru.

What had he been thinking that day? Aside from grumbling about Taichi, Taichi's recklessness, Taichi's lack of judgment, Taichi's questionable eating habits…

"_Then I'll be the guinea pig – if I turn purple, you'll know they're not safe to eat!"_

Yamato couldn't help it. He smiled like he hadn't allowed himself to all those years ago.

"What are you thinking about?" Garurumon asked, breaking in.

He realized he'd been silent for a while – nothing Garurumon wasn't used to from him, but in this pitch black, even an extremely large wolf-monster would appreciate a friendly voice.

"Sorry," Yamato replied. "Déjà vu moment. Infinity Mountain."

"Ah. The battle with Devimon?"

"No, actually," Yamato said with some surprise. "The day Taichi and I fought over whether or not we should climb the mountain, and Jou tried to go alone."

Strange that Devimon hadn't even crossed his mind. They could have been on a camping trick for all the evil coloring that memory. The battle itself was still the stuff of nightmares for him and, he was sure, for the others as well, but before that… well, before that they hadn't really understood what they were in for, had they?

"Don't worry about Taichi," Garurumon said. He grunted and fell quiet for a moment as he hoisted them from one protruding ledge to another. "More often than not he gets by on that special, shiny kind of luck of his, but he takes care of himself pretty well."

"Yeah." Yamato nodded. "He's not someone we have to worry about."

"Except when he is," Garurumon added.

Yamato smiled. "Except when he is."

* * *

** Near Mt. Yahaba  
Mid-afternoon**

Iori wasn't hurt. A little banged up, maybe – scraped palms, bruised kneecaps, maybe a splinter – but nothing devastating, nothing that wouldn't heal, he'd dealt with worse from some of his more stupid kendo mishaps. As far as Iori was concerned, unless you were dying, bleeding from your eyeballs or at the very least missing a limb, you were hardly injured.

But samurai stoicism was lost on Daisuke, who bent over him with his bushy eyebrows scrunched into a squiggle, making a face at the hasty bandage work on Iori's hands.

"How can even your eyebrows be socially awkward?" Iori griped, feeling put out.

Daisuke and his eyebrows ignored him. "Geez man, look at you, you're like a mummy. We're gonna have to call you Imhotep IV."

"I am fine," Iori said again, louder this time. When reason failed, Daisuke sometimes responded to volume. _Why the fourth?_ he wanted to ask, but that would be like pushing the bright red, DO NOT PRESS button on a starship or a Gundam that meant chaos unleashed for at least three episodes straight.

"You are _not,"_ insisted his team leader, turning Iori's arms this way and that. "You won't win any beauty pageants with style like this, you know. How did you manage to get so beat up just by hiding? How does anyone not know how to hide?"

It took enormous self-restraint not to roll his eyes. Or to reach out and – pinch Daisuke's nose or something. His inability to think up a less juvenile punishment only irritated him further.

Then Daisuke's palm impacted with his rear.

"Oof!" Iori grunted.

"Happy Birthday," said Daisuke with an inscrutable grin before moving to another corner of the fire-lit cave.

Iori sank to the ground, watching Daisuke give Ken's arm a shake and take DemiVeemon from him. After suffering Baihumon's metallovirus for almost an hour, Paildramon reverted to DemiVeemon and Minomon with just enough energy left to stagger into their partner's arms. They were both out cold now, sleeping, and neither Daisuke nor Ken could guess how they'd feel when they woke up. Which turned Iori's thoughts towards another wounded and unconscious teammate – one whose condition was far more grievous.

Jou was cradling Gomamon in his arms. With the utmost care, he'd cleaned and bandaged his partner from head to flipper, until Gomamon was so swathed in gauzy cloth that only his sleeping face peeked out unimpeded. Afterward, Jou had been too afraid of jostling Gomamon to find a more comfortable position, even though his legs were falling asleep. He hadn't said a word since they'd taken refuge in the cave.

Standing, Iori crossed over to his side. He put a tentative hand on Jou's shoulder. "It's probably a good sign he hasn't de-digivolved to Bukamon," he offered in a whisper. When that brought no response, he changed tactics. "How's your asthma, Jou-san?"

Jou shot him a dirty look. Iori bit back a sigh.

"Want me to hold him for a while, so you can get some rest?"

"Of course not," Jou said in a throaty voice. His eyes were bloodshot, his face paler than normal. Iori couldn't remember ever feeling more helpless. "Baihumon is still here," Jou went on. "There's no way I'm sleeping while we don't know his intentions."

Iori turned his head surreptitiously towards the titan blocking their only exit. The cave itself was more like a gouge in the mountainside and didn't run very deep. Short of digivolving (which Iori was not at all convinced any of their Digimon were capable of doing at the moment), there was no possibility of creating their own way out. They were, in every way, trapped, and at Baihumon's mercy.

Something pressed into his leg. "Okay there?" asked Armadillomon, sounding languid as usual. But Iori could sense the tension in his contracted muscles, the way he held his head so low that he barely avoided scraping his chin on the floor. Iori set his jaw and nodded once, eyes set on Baihumon's back. The Digimon was incredibly large, immense – enormous, even. During the battle, he'd been even larger, and had shrunk in order to fit in the cave and watch them. But he hadn't made a move since they'd surrendered, hadn't hinted at what he wanted from them. He just crouched there, surveying them with his four glinting eyes, giving off a vibe like a rope stretched to the point of snapping.

Iori and Armadillomon sidled over to Daisuke and Ken, hunched around the fire.

"He doesn't look keen on moving," Daisuke observed with a sidelong glance at their warden.

"Keep it down," Ken ordered. "Those ears are probably hyper-sensitive. Better to not say anything at all…"

As if proving Ken's point, Baihumon hefted his body off the floor. His tail lashed behind him like a pendulum. He took great sniffs at the air outside as if obsessed.

Iori felt the ground thrum with some noise that had nothing to do with the storm outside. He, Daisuke and Ken all got to their feet. The Digimon kept close. Iori felt Armadillomon ready himself – as the only Rookie fit for battle, Iori knew his partner would consider the task of protecting them his own. _Hopefully he won't overdo it with the heroics,_ Iori thought with a pang.

Baihumon roared. The sound plugged their ears, and for a few moments after they couldn't hear a thing. Eventually it died away, and Baihumon had placed himself at the mouth of the cave.

"I want Gennai to come here himself, not send another pathetic servant!"

Iori and Ken shared a glance. There was… almost a _whine_ in Baihumon's voice. As if, for all his power and might, there was someone out there always telling him _no._

Whoever had arrived at their campout was hidden from sight by Baihumon's bulk.

"Gennai is old, and long travel tires him these days. You will have to make do with me," came the newcomer's voice. Jou, who had crept over with Gomamon swaddled in his arms, looked up in sudden recognition.

"It's Centarumon," he whispered to Iori and the others.

"Furthermore," Centarumon went on, "you were explicitly ordered not to harm these children. Behavior like yours would disincline anyone to come near you."

"You are _late!"_ Baihumon roared.

"It could not be helped."

"He should have taken me to his territory, rather than pick an arbitrary spot and then send out his lackey like a coward," Baihumon said.

"I think Gennai has made his reasons for keeping his location a secret very clear to you," Centarumon replied smoothly.

Baihumon snarled. "I will not be disrespected! Send Gennai to me, or I will find him and kill him myself."

"My lord, I am sure I do not need to point out to you how counterproductive such a course of action would be, considering your goals," Centarumon replied impassively. "I'm rather put out coming here myself. I have duties – duties the Sovereigns assigned me, you'll recall."

Baihumon flared his nostrils and seemed to be searching for a reply, then gave a huff and began to pace around the cave. Centarumon took the opportunity to trot in, and leveled his single eye on the group of Chosen at the firepit.

"Hello, Jou," he said in greeting. "Children. I am relieved to find you safe."

"Call this safe?" Daisuke grumbled.

"Are any of you hurt?" Centarumon observed the sleeping DemiVeemon and Minomon, and Gomamon's grievous injuries. "I see you're the only Digimon up for a fight," he muttered to Armadillomon.

Armadillomon planted his forelegs more firmly in the earth. "I'm ready any time, Centarumon, just say the word," he said, with far more conviction than Iori was used to hearing from his easy-going partner.

"Don't count us out either. DemiVeemon may need time to recuperate, but I've got two titanium fists that can lay 'em flat and I won't hold back." Daisuke shook both fists in demonstration. Ken gave him a warning nudge with his elbow.

"Centarumon," Jou cut in, desperate. "Ikkakumon's horn was smashed in the battle. Smashed to the hilt. And Gomamon's been like this ever since." He was struggling to keep his voice steady. "Will it grow back? Can you do anything for him?"

"Centarumon!" Baihumon barked sharply from across the cave. "I refrained from killing Gennai's pets according to our deal. Either you make good on what he owes me now, or I kill all of you in the most painful way possible."

"Calm yourself, Baihumon, there's no need to be dramatic," Centarumon said.

"Uh, should you be antagonizing him like that?" Daisuke whispered. "I mean, he really could do it."

"I thought you were going to lay him flat with your titanium fists," Ken teased, earning a glare from Daisuke.

Bending over at the waist, Centarumon surveyed Gomamon from head to tail. He reached out and brushed back Gomamon's downy mane. Finally he sighed and told Jou, "I cannot do anything for him myself, but Gennai's sanctuary is a place of healing. He will recover provided we return to Gennai in a timely manner."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Jou strode past Centarumon, and Iori started. It was rare enough that Jou voluntarily took the lead, even moreso that he did so rashly –

"Jou-san, wait." Ken darted after him. "We can't just leave. There's a super-powerful Digimon prone to violent rage with his eye on us, and even assuming he _would_ let us go, we'd be leaving the others in a vulnerable position."

"We'll message them to be on their guard."

"What about Taichi-san?" Daisuke broke in. "You know, the reason we're in this mess in the first place?"

"Nothing is more important right now than Gomamon," Jou shot back, wet-eyed.

Daisuke's brow creased and his mouth opened to retort, but Ken quickly raised a hand to stop him.

"I know you're worried," he said evenly. "I'm also concerned about the after-effects of the metallovirus that defeated Paildramon. But, look, Centarumon said Gennai doesn't want Baihumon to know where he is. If we escape now, there's nothing to stop him following us, and we'd lead him right to Gennai." The tight muscles in Jou's jaw began to slacken as Ken's logic sank in. Ken leaned over Jou's shoulder. "We will get Gomamon to Gennai no matter what. But first we have to shake Baihumon off our trail."

Reluctantly, Jou nodded. Ken brought his arm around Jou as his shoulders drooped, and led him back towards the fire.

"We need a plan," Iori said in a low voice.

"I have one," Centarumon replied, "but you must trust me. It will go against your instincts to do as I say, but my orders come straight from Gennai. For now, we must humor the beast. Baihumon," Centarumon called out, swiveling his head towards the rumbling monster. "You have been patient. I will now lead you to that which you seek."

Baihumon leveled a sharp eye on the group of Chosen. "I want them to come."

"How fortunate, those were my thoughts exactly. Children, follow me, please." To the Chosen's astonishment, Centarumon turned and clambered out of the cave.

"I thought we were gonna fight," Daisuke whispered, sounding more puzzled than disappointed.

"We are in no condition to fight," Ken sighed. He put his hands on Daisuke's shoulders and gave him a push. "You're the leader, so lead the way out."

Daisuke now fixed his shock on Ken, and looked to Iori for help. Iori, fully approving of Ken's methods, stared back at him stoically.

"One of us has got to move, or Baihumon will change his mind about honoring his part of whatever deal he has with Gennai," Ken said.

"In other words, he'll eat us," Iori put in.

That snapped Daisuke back into the moment, and he grumped off toward the exit of the cave. Baihumon's eyes, shining like searchlights, watched them as they filed out. After a minute, he stalked silently after them.

The rain had stopped and the wind had mostly died down. The sky was still a wall of gray. Iori placed himself a few paces behind Jou, whose undivided attention was on his partner. He meant to shield Jou in case Baihumon had any sudden desire to finish what he'd started. Armadillomon followed close on his heels.

They could feel Baihumon's hot breath on their backs all the way down the mountainside.

* * *

** Vademon's Tunnel  
17:00**

"Yamato. Wake up."

Yamato stirred at the sound of Garurumon's voice. At some point he'd slumped forward on his partner's back, body aching all over, falling into the soft warmth of the wolf's long fur. It was a testament to Garurumon's strength that he'd managed to keep Yamato upright while he dozed. Tenderness swept over him, and he blushed in spite of himself, grateful for the dark.

He was always safe with Garurumon.

"How long was I asleep for?"

"I'm not sure, but not long," Garurumon rumbled. "We're at a dead end."

"What?" Yamato blinked away the last traces of sleepiness and sat up straight. "That can't be. That would mean we went down the wrong tunnel!"

"Hold on. I found something odd. I don't know if you can see it. There are carvings on that far rock."

"I'll check it out." Yamato swung his stiff legs off Garurumon's back and climbed down. He zipped up his jacket, feeling the piercing cold doubly now that he no longer had Garurumon's body heat as a barrier. Knotting his hand in a tuft of fur, he let his partner lead him several paces, until they met a jagged wall of rock.

"They look like Digicode," Garurumon said.

Yamato pulled out his cell phone and flipped it open. He held it close to the rock, using the backlight to illuminate the carvings. Dim, but effective. He took some photos and forwarded them to Koushirou.

"So, what do you think?" Garurumon asked.

Yamato ran his fingers over the cold stone. "Honestly, I don't think I could tell one form of Digicode from another. But it definitely reminds me of what we saw at that factory way back when. And at Primary Village. You know, I've never really understood what these are. Koushirou's tried to explain, but – they're some kind of writing system, right?"

Garurumon drew in his shoulders and cocked his head in a lupine version of a shrug. "It's the first sign of anything other than rock and viral eggs that we've come across," he said, and sat down at Yamato's side.

Yamato removed his Digivice from his belt loop and stared at the empty screen forlornly. "I wish more of those creepy signs would show up to at least give us a hint at what to do next."

"I'm a little concerned that you want to see more of those signs. One of them told me, quite explicitly, that I am 'the North end of a South-bound Donkeymon."

"But if my clock's right, we've been down here almost two hours now. Even if this is the right place, Taichi could've been moved, could've been hurt…" He gave the cell phone a frustrated squeeze.

Garurumon nudged the back of his legs with his snout. "We're doing the best that we can with what we've got, which is all we've ever done. It's worked out before." Tilting his head, he took a deep whiff of the chilly air. "How about we retrace our steps? There may be an adjoining tunnel that I missed."

Yamato paused. That seemed the sensible thing to do, but he found it hard to believe that Garurumon, with his powerful senses, and on such an important mission, would have passed by another tunnel. He was being a pessimist, but he couldn't help it. But it was their only plan.

Then he glanced at his partner curled up against him, his torso lifting and falling with each breath. Though it was cold, Garurumon's head was slick with sweat. He looked exhausted, but he never complained. He still wanted to continue the search.

Yamato turned away, a lump rising to his throat. "You know what, I think we should wait here for a while and see if Koushirou can make anything out of that code. If our hunch was right, and Taichi's down here, then leaving may be as dangerous as staying." Before Garurumon could reply, Yamato plunked down next to him. Leaning into the crook of his partner's foreleg, Yamato put his Digivice in one hand and his cell phone in the other.

Garurumon watched him, his silence like a test. "If you're sure," he said finally.

"I'm sure." He wasn't. But they had next to nothing to go on now. And as much as Yamato wanted Taichi safe, he had others to take care of as well. That, he was sure, Taichi would understand.

* * *

Awareness returned to Taichi in fragments.

First he noticed his breathing. A slow, long intake of air, and a shuddering exhale, drawn out as if too fragile to rush. He latched on to the easy rise and fall of his chest as the one piece of reality that wasn't lost in muddled confusion. He counted them, and waited. The murk in his head cleared up steadily, but he couldn't tell how much time had passed between when he first came to and when his arms and legs began to tingle with feeling.

His whole body felt weighted. There was a scent in the air that had been lingering on the edge of his mind ever since he could last remember. It was faint but sweet, and reminded Taichi vaguely of the cloying smell of sandalwood he was familiar with from burning incense at the local shrines. It led him to think, for a moment, that that was where he was, lolling on a bench while his parents left their New Year's offering, or said a prayer, or cleansed their hands. The anxiety that had crept up on him started to dissipate. It was tempting to let himself drift off back to sleep.

But the smell was toointense for sandalwood, he realized with a sudden flash of clarity, the smoke too thick for an incense pot. A bright heat pressed against his eyelids. He tried to open them and felt gripped by irrational fear. He didn't know where he was. He didn't know what he had been doing.

Finally he managed to pry his eyes open, only to flinch away from the guttering brightness. He coughed through a cloud of smoke and rolled on his side. His stuck out a hand and met rock.

_Oh God,_ Taichi thought, pushing himself onto his knees. _Fire._

Flames leapt all around him. His shadow twisted on the far wall, contorted into a misshapen, tortured silhouette, like a marionette at the mercy of a sadistic puppeteer. Taichi searched blankly for an exit – but an exit to _where?_

He forced himself to calm down. Where he was wasn't important. How to escape – or to stop the flames – was all that mattered. Focus. Look for a way out.

But the smoke was like a solid mass above him. It was all he could do not to choke as he tried to stand. His bare feet were the worst, grilling like a pair of steaks on charcoal.

"Bad day," he rasped, eyes stinging. "Would rather be sitting for exams. Unprepared. Without a calculator." He pressed his forehead to the ground and sucked in the clearest air. "Okay. So, there's a fire. I don't know where I am and there's a fire. This could, potentially, be hell. I don't think I was that bad a kid but, hey, we're our own worst judges, right? So, worst case scenario: I'm in hell. What's the best case – best case scenario? A grill-a-thon gone horribly wrong. Where _I'm_ the one being grilled. And the last thing I'll ever see is the flab under Guy Fieri's beard."

That set him off laughing, though it wasn't long before the smoke got the better of him again and he started wheezing instead.

"Okay, talking – talking is not a good idea."

He spotted what he'd taken for an oddly-shaped rock rising out of the highest flames. But rocks tended not to move around, and this one did. Squinting hard, he scrabbled against the rock and reassessed it. It was definitely a humanoid figure. And it was walking through the fire.

"Daisuke?" he called, noticing a gleam on the figure's head – light reflecting off a pair of goggles? He remembered with a jolt leaving with Daisuke for Digiworld. "Daisuke, is that you?"

The figure paused. Taichi crawled forward, keeping low to the ground. He'd thought that between the smoke and the heat, his mind was fooling him, but it really looked as if Daisuke (or whoever) were walking _in the flames,_ and not burning. He could just make out a thin profile with wild hair. His face was shadowed except for the reflection of the flames in his unblinking eyes.

"Daisuke!" Taichi covered his mouth and forced himself to stand. "Come over here!" He stretched out his hand.

As he waved an arm at the smoky air, his companion began to morph. Maybe it was another trick of the light. Or maybe he'd finally snapped. All the same, the flame-burnished figure took on a new shape – hair sticking out at all angles, sharp eyes behind thick lenses, a sardonic smile. Familiar.

Ken's smile.

_Osamu's_ smile.

Taichi hesitated only a second. He needed the upper hand. "You're dead."

"You're early." The figure – Osamu – _but it couldn't be –_ took a step towards him. Taichi in turn stepped back.

"Early for what? I never made any appointment…" Taichi trailed off and a puzzled crease appeared in his brow. He'd said something similar not long ago – hadn't he?

"You're really too early, all things considered. We should let you go. Shouldn't we? But it's never a bad idea to collect your resources ahead of schedule. But should we?"

Disconcerted, Taichi gave the room a quick scan. "Who are you talking to?"

Zombie Osamu (because what else could he possibly be?) fell silent for a moment. Then his chin gave a sharp jerk. "We shouldn't veer from the plan. Let nature run its course. Nothing is natural about this world. Nothing is natural."

The zombie appeared to be talking to himself. It was downright creepy, the way he referred to himself as "we." That enigmatic grin had slipped from his face. While he debated with his other self, he stood rooted to the ground, face devoid of expression.

Incredulous, Taichi listened to his babbling, but none of it made sense. Suddenly he realized the smoke wasn't irritating him anymore. He looked at his feet and immediately jumped back; not only was he somehow standing in the fire, but flames were climbing up his legs, _without leaving a single burn._

Panic seemed imminent.

"Hey! Zombie! Where the hell am I – what's going on!?"

The zombie only shook his head and kept arguing with himself. "We could kill him now. No, it's too early. Too early, I mean it. We could kill him."

Once again, Taichi spun around, looking for someone else, the mysterious mind-reader Zombie Osamu was talking to. "Okay, you know what? Not cool! You're blabbering like a maniac – ignoring me – ignoring me while you plot to _kill_ me!" he shouted. "At least ask _me_ what I think about all this!"

"Oh, I'm sorry. That was rude of me. Of course, when would you like me to kill you?"

Taichi froze mid-rant. Zombie Osamu looked different, now that he was addressing Taichi. His smile was back, but something about it was gentler, more genuine. It was still Osamu's face, but not the mocking smirk Taichi remembered from their first and only meeting so many years ago. But it was still familiar, and it frustrated Taichi that he couldn't place it. He knew he should know it. The name teetered on the tip of his tongue.

The zombie quirked an eyebrow. "So, what will it be? Shall I kill you now, or later?"

"Why are you giving me a choice?" Taichi asked between scratchy breaths.

"You asked for one," the creature said, with a positively condescending smile in his eyes. "And it's only fair, since one way or another, I am going to kill you."

"And after you kill me…" He took up his best poker face, imagining he was staring down Piedmon, determined not to let the monster's attention drift from him to Koushirou and Hikari, who'd be vulnerable as soon as their hiding place was discovered. "After you kill me, then what?"

"Then Chaos will end."

Taichi looked sidelong at a wall. "O… kay… I pick later."

"Is that your final answer?" the zombie asked.

"Sure. Seems like the option most people would go for. And anyway I wouldn't want chaos to end too early. Some people like chaos. Especially drunk, topless bar fly types."

"And you're one of those people who like chaos."

"Thanks, I like to think I'm pretty special." Taichi casually slipped his hands in his pockets. "Later'll be fine."

"Suit yourself."

"But I have another question."

"You've always had many."

"After you kill me, what'll happen to me?" Taichi asked, amused by his own morbid curiosity. He wanted to know if Zombie Osamu meant to kill him in the literal sense, with bloody entrails and gore and empty eye sockets, or if he was referring to the gradual digitization which was creeping up on him even now.

Zombie Osamu hesitated. Did the question disturb him? Or did he just not want to answer?

He'd noticed something peculiar while bantering with the zombie. An arch door along the far wall, built of thick metal. Going by every RPG ever, it was, quite likely, a way out. He made a furtive move towards it, marveling as he maneuvered through fire that didn't burn.

The zombie finally finished puzzling out his answer. "You won't die," he said.

"Good to know," Taichi said, edging along. "As if I don't have enough riddles to deal with _already."_

Then, in a flash, and without a closing remark, the creature melted into a waxy puddle on the earth. Taichi froze for an instant, astounded. Until he was shoved back to the present by a searing pain in his feet. His mysterious immunity had left him. Fire was once against his enemy.

"Ow. Ow, ow ow…" He hopped in place.

He coughed. He panted.

He wanted to leap into a pool. Of ice cream. A pool of super cold (chocolate-with-a-cherry) ice cream.

Then he remembered The Door.

It loomed mere feet away, looking shiny and metallic and very, _very_ solid. And it was his only hope.

With a hand over his mouth, he dropped to all fours and crawled through the blaze.

* * *

**Chapter Notes:**

1.] _Donkeymon:_ I beg your forgiveness. This is a horrible pun. I'm famous for them. Ask my friends. And suffer with them.

_So, kits – thanks again SO VERY MUCH for your kind reviews, encouragement, tipped hats etc. during the course of the year. I never, ever meant to disappear for so long, especially without warning you. That's a good way to lose readers, which is not what I want. I was having a bunch of personal issues during the summer, and then junior year at college blindsides me – I bit off more than I could easily chew (it was more like obscene gnawing and frothing at the mouth). So, I fell into a rut and was feeling pretty low about it. But, in the end, I triumphed, and this chapter is proof._

_I promise that throughout the year, I was constantly thinking about you guys and this fic. In February I was convinced I'd have this chapter finished. Obviously I overestimated myself. It's not an excuse. But, really, y'all, I got such a jolt out of checking hits and visitors for this fic. I don't know who exactly was reading random chapters, but it lifted me spirits every time story traffic told me you were. I have a lot of insecurities about this fic. There are so many parts that really need a rewrite. But your hits and reviews make me feel stupid for having those insecurities. The story needs work, sure, but I'm so happy to know people like it enough to reread._

_The good thing about the hiatus was that I worked out a ton of plot kinks. Part of the issue this time was this chapter was just a monster to write. I couldn't decide how to get from point A to point B. I think I've smoothed it out now. Next chapter, all the action promised in this chapter will erupt. I hope you'll like it._

_I have no intention of dropping this fic. Thanks again, any old readers who happen to return, and any new readers. I hope this chapter makes up at least a little for the year-long break. If not, let me know, I will bake you kasutera cake! (I'm good at it.)_

_Love, Fizz_


	12. A Most Heroic Rescue

_A/N: Hey kits! Thanks so much for the fabulous feedback last chapter! I felt warm and fuzzy for a whole week. Thanks to y'all, I think this is the earliest a chapter has ever been posted. A lot happens here – like I said, everything promised in chapter eleven now comes to fruition. And the fun does not stop there._

_By the way, how come no one noticed that up till now, I've been referring to Infinity Mountain as Mount Destiny? This is a biggie! I've done it like a million times and I don't even know how I got it into my head that the mountain was called Destiny! All of a sudden the other day, I was reading and heard Matt's voice in my head saying "Infinity Mountain!" from like episode 13 or something. And I was all, "Oh my gosh! How did I even do that?" So, I've edited it in chapter 11, but it might take some time for the others. Ooh boy, has the fail boat sailed or has it sailed!_

_Also, congrats to __**Potgenie**__, the 100th reviewer! A hundred reviews - I can't believe it! Thanks a bunch to you all._

_Now, please enjoy – and R&R!_

* * *

**Chapter Twelve**

**A Most Heroic Rescue**

"_Do not protect yourself by a fence, but rather by your friends."  
- Czech Proverb_

** TO: Izumi Koushirou  
FROM: Ishida Yamato**

** MSG: Might've found something. We're at a dead end but there's a wall down here with what Garurumon and I think is Digicode. I'm sending you a photo. Unless you can make heads or tails of this, I don't know what to do next.**

** Yamato**

* * *

Frowning at his computer screen, Koushirou opened his Digi-Analyzer and imported Yamato's photo of the cavern wall. Working out the cipher would be a lot less daunting if his own knowledge of Digicode weren't so rusty, and if the picture weren't so dim. There was a chance the Analyzer would miss the shadowed parts of the message. He might be able to enhance the image. It was also possible that he or the computer could figure out the missing code on their own through deductive reasoning.

"… taking his sweet time even letting us know where he is – and we were really hampered by that storm… Koushirou-kun, you're not even listening!"

"What?" Koushirou murmured, bent over the screen. "Oh – no, I'm listening, I just –"

Mimi tapped her foot. "You look like a vulture, all hunched over like that."

He tried to hide his discomfort by reminding himself that clashes with Mimi were nothing new. Whenever Koushirou and Mimi ended up alone together for any length of time, their good relations sank about as quickly as a leaky canoe patched with fishnet in a turbulent river.

They were friends. They were. But he was a shy, somewhat reclusive techie who tended to sound condescending even though he _never_ meant to (because really, while there was nothing especially difficult about defragmenting a hard disk, explaining how it's done, _after_ explaining what exactly a hard disk is, took up a lot of time, so why not just let him take care of it?). And she was an outgoing, beautiful starlet of a teenage girl with droves of admirers; not to mention that when he'd first tried out the Linux OS, she'd said: "Oh, I know that, isn't he the guy who always carries around a blanket from _Charlie Brown?"_

_Newsflash, Izumi – different people are different. _In their case, it was just a bit more in-your-face. He did love her, of course he did – she had a way about her that put little giddy smiles on the face of everyone around her – but she could also be so… Mimi.

He heard her sigh and plunk down behind him. During the storm, gushing mud and rocks tumbling down the mountainside had forced them to abandon their campsite and fly off on Kabuterimon to a safe spot. They were now good and soaked through, and left with little else to do but worry about Yamato and Garurumon.

There was the root of the problem. Mimi was mad at him for letting Yamato take off on his own.

"I'm not trying to ignore you," Koushirou said in an attempt to make peace. "It's just that deciphering this code requires a lot of attention."

"How do we even know that it's important?" Mimi demanded. "What if it's just as useless as those stupid signs? Then we'll be sending Yamato-san on _another_ wild goose chase."

"We don't know that we sent him on one to begin with," Koushirou protested. "He might be near Taichi-san right now."

"And he might be a thousand miles away, and instead of helping look we're sitting here while you tap away at that computer."

Apparently it was still a little early to discuss a ceasefire. He felt awkward and socially inept. Well, being better with code than with people wasn't all bad, most people thought his tech know-how made him pretty damn awesome. But there was some secret embarrassment in not being able to interact smoothly with a girl – doubly so since he hated fitting an outdated stereotype.

And it wasn't even true. He got along with girls just as easily as with boys. They were all just people in the end – in Mimi's case, more than a person, a friend – and he could feel just as awkward around a guy too. But for some reason both he and others always zeroed in on the times he floundered around a girl, probably because they thought they were supposed to – some kind of social conditioning –

He sighed, resolving to ride out her sulk, and went back to working on the code.

Tentomon, relaxing on his backpack, lifted his head. "You know she's not really mad at you, right?" he whispered.

"Yeah."

"She's worried."

"I know."

Out of the corner of his eye, Koushirou saw Palmon put an arm around Mimi's shoulders. Mimi pulled her partner closer, and Palmon worked on the tangles in Mimi's hair. An irrational sense of guilt struck him. He _did_ know. How often had he sat helplessly while Taichi or one of the others set off on some dangerous task and he could do nothing to help but worry?

His emotions were all in a knot – concern for Yamato and paralyzing fear for Taichi and whatever Vademon had done to him tangled up with his frustration with their grating inactivity. But expressing those emotions was hard. And often not worth it. Calm, calculating, steady – that was the Koushirou he tried to show the world, because otherwise his insecurities stood out too starkly, and sometimes it felt like his computer whiz reputation was all that mattered. And this – right now, this… situation was invalidating all of that. What good was being a computer whiz and holding a pristine record when one of his closest friends was lost, and in very real danger of having his curiosity stolen _(how they'd explain that one to the neurologists was beyond him)_, or being attacked by a monster, or never coming home?

At least _now_ they had the code. At least he felt useful for the time being, even if his analysis turned out to be useless. Mimi had it worse. She could no sooner help him with his work than she could tunnel through the earth and drag Taichi away from Vademon's mania with her bare hands.

"… I'm sorry about all this," Koushirou said after a while.

At first he thought she wouldn't answer, but then she peered at him over her shoulder. "About what?"

"All _this,"_ he repeated, gesturing around them. "About getting separated. About Taichi-san falling off his rocker. About your summer break turning into people fighting, changing plans, getting lost in another world…"

"I don't mind any of that," she said softly. "We're Chosen. This is part of what we do."

"Yeah, it is. But we were all looking forward to you coming. We were planning on picking you up at the airport together. Jou-san even cleared his schedule so he could meet you. And then that fiasco with Takeru's D3 happened, and we were up all night, and seeing double of everything the next day. It's been downhill ever since."

He trailed off because her face suddenly lit up.

"Jou-senpai was going to come meet me?" she asked, starting to smile.

"Yeah, I'm not actually sure why he changed his mind, but Sora-san wanted everyone to come to the airport and got him to free up the time."

"Aww, even you, Koushi?" she said in such a sweet voice that he blushed. "I'm so touched. To think that little old me could tear you two from your busy lives."

"My life is not that busy." Koushirou rolled his eyes. "Yamato-san's the busiest of all of us. I don't know how he balances school, his band, and voice lessons, plus all the extras that come with being an upcoming star."

"He seems tired," Mimi said with a sympathetic tilt of her head. "That's why he snapped at us before. And probably why he fights with Sora-san so much, too."

"I don't know what's up with them. They never came clean about why they broke up."

"Sora-san said she broke it off because they were never on the same page. But I always thought that was kind of a flimsy excuse."

"Well, it's none of our business, anyway." He turned back to his computer. The Analyzer was almost done processing the code.

"… I broke up with Michael."

He glanced at her, sidelong. _What a surprise. That's what, the third time now?_ "Oh, really? That's… too bad."

"He wanted to get more serious," she sighed, arms wrapped around her knees. "I told him I wasn't ready for that, he gave me an ultimatum… I chose to end it."

Koushirou exchanged a look with Tentomon. "By wanting to get more 'serious,' you mean he… tried to pressure you… to h-have –"

_"No,"_ she groaned, exasperated. "Michael's not that kind of person." She left it at that and went back to gazing at the clouds.

"Oh, Mimi," Palmon sighed.

Tentomon interrupted them with a cry. "Koushirou-han! The code – it's complete!"

Mimi and Palmon jumped to their feet and hurried over. Koushirou punched a few keys while the analyzed data loaded. Within a few seconds, a series of criss-crossing colored lines appeared, marked by various symbols. A compass loaded in a corner.

"It's a map," Mimi breathed. Then, with a squeal, she threw her arms around Koushirou's neck. "Koushirou-kun, omigod! You're a genius!"

Red to the tips of his ears and rather awed by the way Mimi's mood had so unabashedly done a 180, Koushirou gave her a hesitant pat on the back. A map it was indeed. An intricate, three-dimensional map lay before them, with danger zones marked in red, entrances and exits gleaming green. Pathways spidered out like veins, some too small for passage, some leading to dead ends. But there was something systematic about the layout of the roads, something deliberate about their design.

"It's a map of the caves," Koushirou realized. "And they could easily be Vademon's – in fact, it'd be an amazing coincidence if they're not – they aren't random like naturally formed caves. They all lead here, to this central chamber."

Mimi and the Digimon stared at him, each face asking the same question: _What does it mean?_

"It means I can find out where Yamato-san is," Koushirou explained as a grin spread wide across his face. "And if we're lucky, I can find Taichi-san too."

* * *

**Vademon's Tunnel  
17:20**

His cell phone beeped, making Yamato jump, then pounce on it while accidentally spearing Garurumon with his foot in the process; the wolf gave a grunt – _"urf" _– and laid his ears back. Wincing at the first flash of light, Yamato wasted no time tabbing over to his inbox.

With each word of Koushirou's message, his spirits rose. This was better than he'd dared to hope for. An entire _map._

"What is it, Yamato?" Garurumon asked with interest. Yamato realized he'd stood up without meaning to.

"Koushirou made a map out of those symbols," he relayed to his partner.

"A map of where?"

"El Dorado. He's sending us treasure-hunting. We will return draped with enough riches to buy Taichi from Vademon, and you can have a diamond-studded collar. A map of the _caves,_ Garurumon." Yamato scanned the rest of the message while his partner groused at him under his steamy breath. "Koushirou says the map is too large and involved for him to cap it and send it to my phone, but apparently there's an inner chamber that all the tunnels are connected to… and it's just beyond this wall."

They both turned to gaze at the high carved wall. "Beyond it?" Garurumon repeated, sounding doubtful. "Well, that explains why we've only gone straight up until now, but how does Koushirou know that we're at the right place?"

"He says he locked onto the signal from my Digivice and pinpointed us on the map. And the dead end's a trick… this is not a wall, it's a door."

Garurumon got to his feet. "If it's a door, there must be a way to open it."

Yamato frowned, thinking. His cell phone beeped again.

** OK, I unscrambled the encryption by assuming it follows the same decoding key that is used in Factorial Town, where Tentomon first digivolved. Remember how changing a stroke in the code affected the entire complex? I think the carvings you found are part of a battery which runs similar to that one. Prodigious, really.**

** Here's what I want you to do: look closely at the images I'm about to send, then find their matches on the door. There are three key stones. Find a sharp rock and make a diagonal line from right to left through the first one. The second you just need to push in, and the third you might as well erase completely, to secure your way out.**

** I couldn't tag Taichi-san's Digivice in the inner room, but to be honest, I can't get much of a read on it at all. The Digicode is likely interfering. After you open the door, text me if you get Taichi-san's signal on your Digivice.**

** There's a chance that someone will be alerted by your operating the door. But Vademon seemed quite the loner when he caught me. Ever heard of **_**id**__**é**__**e fixe?**_** An old concept, but fitting. Vademon is obsessed with collecting curiosity to the point that he's disassociated from everything else. It makes him a dangerous character, though. Be careful and contact us often. Mimi-san and I are regrouping with the others to be your back up.**

** Good luck.**

** Koushirou**

After Yamato read the email to Garurumon, he stretched out his palm and they stared at the phone as if the Virgin Mary had appeared to them within the pixelated screen.

"If only Koushirou would apply himself more," Yamato joked, though with undisguised admiration.

"Are we actually going to do all that? I could just blast through it."

Yamato smirked, watching Garurumon pace in front of the door, beating his tail back and forth in anticipation. "You know what, buddy, I think we should just follow Koushirou's instructions for now. But I promise you can blast something to smithereens later, just for good measure."

He took Garurumon's silence as a sign of agreement and looked at the picture of the first symbol on his phone, then at the wall. There must have been hundreds of delicately carved code on that slab of rock. "Your vision is much better than mine. See if you can find this." He showed Garurumon the picture. Lifting his brow as if to say _Blasting it would not only be satisfying, it would also spare us these tedious moments of our lives,_ Garurumon gave the picture a quick glance, then scanned the wall.

"Up there," he said, gesturing with his nose.

Yamato padded at the ground until he found a good-sized rock with a tapered end like a crude spearhead. He positioned himself on Garurumon's back and gave the first symbol, which looked like an ampersand turned upside-down, several diagonal strokes with the stone. A green-blue glow filled the carved grooves like running water and glittered like a star even after Yamato pulled his hand away.

"The second is over here," his partner said, maneuvering them a little to the left.

The directions for this one were weird. Uncertain, Yamato pressed his hand to the stone and waited.

"Um, it's not doing anything."

"What did Koushirou say to do?"

"Just push it in. But it's not – waaugh!"

The second carving glowed the same way as the first, and then the square of rock slid backwards, until Yamato's arm was elbow-deep in a hole. He struggled to keep his balance, tottering forward and treading on one of Garurumon's ears.

"You're doing this on purpose," Garurumon grunted.

Yamato recovered his footing, beginning to reconsider blasting through, and thinking that _this_ was exactly why he never jumped for a full-scale spruce tree during the Christmas season.

The third symbol took the longest to find, and Yamato added _back ache_ and _eye strain_ to his list of grievances he was going to take out on Taichi the minute they found him. But they finally stumbled upon it in one of the bottom rows by their feet. It was box-shaped with what resembled a curly X in the center.

"I'll blast through this –"

"Yeah, no. Koushirou said _erase_ it, not stick a hole in it. We wouldn't need a door if we were just going to climb through the wreckage of everything you destroy. Besides, what if Vademon wanders by and notices that a chunk of his door is missing? Think he'll blame it on some mischievous baby cave troll?"

While Garurumon tried to puzzle out what sort of Digimon a cave troll was, Yamato set about disfiguring the last symbol with his crude chisel. Mud and grime stained his elbows and knees as he crouched, scratching at the wall. It was a painstaking task, and he didn't know what to expect afterward. Would the door just open on its own?

They didn't have long to wait. As Yamato made one last slash with the rock, each of the hundreds of symbols took on the same greenish glow as the key stones, until the entire slab shimmered and the outline of a door appeared. Dust heaved into the air as the door slid noisily away. They coughed and shut their eyes as light streamed in. When the dust subsided, Yamato brushed hair out of his eyes and peered cautiously beyond the door.

Where the door had once been, the hard earth had given way to a wood-paneled floor. Shelves upon shelves of garishly colored jars were arranged along every aisle. Sharp prongs, a can opener, and something that looked like the unfortunate cross-breeding of a coffee pot and a unicycle were scattered among other odds and ends on the shelves. Yamato's eyes hurt as he stepped into the well-lit room.

"Quick, de-digivolve," he said in a low voice. "You're too bulky to make it around this without knocking something over."

"Excuse me, I happen to be in top form for a Digimon my size," Garurumon harrumphed. His body began to shine and contort, leveling down to the more appropriately built Gabumon, whose stomach gave a loud growl the instant he materialized next to Yamato.

Gabumon blushed and gave a sheepish smile. "Sorry –"

Yamato fumbled in his jacket and pulled out a couple granola bars. "Don't mention it."

While Gabumon happily made short work of his snack, Yamato unclasped his Digivice and glanced at the screen. His heart leapt at the sight of a familiar red dot blinking in and out somewhere in the same vicinity.

"We've found him," he said.

"Where?" Gabumon licked crumbs off his chin.

"Can't be sure, but he's nearby. We'll just have to look around. _Quietly."_

They skirted along the walls together. Yamato examined several jars of a pinkish-gray, gel-like substance as they passed by. He wrinkled his nose at the thought that one of them might contain Taichi's curiosity. In a moment of rage, Yamato entertained himself with images of forcing Vademon's gigantic head into one of his own jars. And then replacing Takashi's snare drum with it.

Immature? Probably. But such was the flavor of victory.

They rounded a corner into a narrow room of counters and more Frankenstein appliances. There was soft whirring sound, like an AC on Low. Yamato's Digivice began going haywire.

"Yamato, look!" Gabumon hissed, pointing.

Yamato followed his line of sight. There, lying innocently among the gizmos and gadgets, was a Digivice. It didn't take a brain of Koushirou's caliber to figure out to whom it belonged. He muttered a curse. At least they could recover that much – but if it the Digivice was here, then _where_ was its holder?

Crouching low, Yamato slid across the floor, intending to swipe Taichi's Digivice off the counter with Gabumon guarding him from behind. Then he noticed the whirring noise getting louder. No, coming closer. He hesitated, but scooted back into a hidden corner with Gabumon, just as the door swung open.

A spindly, multiped Digimon with fish eyes and cables plugged into his enormous brain walked – slithered – _tentacled_ inside. _Vademon,_ Yamato registered instantly, recognizing him from his entry in Koushirou's Digi-Analyzer. Vademon came in with his ray gun tucked under his arm, carrying some kind of machine and a tiny vial, maybe an inch in length, filled with a bubbling, iridescent liquid. Picking up a palm-sized black chip, he snapped the vial into place between a pair of teeth on either end. He inserted the chip into the machine like an old school floppy disk.

Yamato watched the scene play out, feeling stuck. All his instincts rallied for an attack. But if he kept hidden, Vademon might let on why he abducted Taichi and what he'd done to him. He might lose the chance for ambush, though, and then they wouldn't get the drop on him.

Damn, did he want to punch something.

Vademon sashayed towards their hiding place, wearing a complacent smile on his pinched lips, _on his way to bathe in other Digimon's curiosity,_ Yamato thought morbidly. He was still weighing his options when Vademon paused, reached out with one tentacle and swept up Taichi's Digivice.

_Screw it. Leave being rational to Koushirou._

Gabumon caught his eye. Yamato gave a nod. As a unit, they leapt out from their hiding place, Gabumon hitting Vademon dead on with a burst of blue fire from his mouth, while Yamato made a mad dash for the Digivice waving around at the end of one tentacle. He was immediately smacked in the face by two others, but succeeded in knocking the Digivice out of Vademon's grip.

"Vagrants! How dare you! How did you find this room?" Vademon sputtered, golf ball eyes narrowed with fury.

"Gabumon, digivolve now!" Yamato cried.

A moment later Garurumon had returned, but Yamato was discouraged to see how worn out he looked. A granola bar (plus a handful of Takeru's lamented trail mix) might be all right for a Digimon of Gabumon's size, but they had intended to eat something more substantial before taking on an Ultimate-level opponent. By exploring the caves on their own, they'd cut themselves off from the rest of the group, and the provisions.

_Hang in there, partner,_ Yamato sent mentally. Determined to do all he could to make things easier on Garurumon, Yamato dove again for the Digivice while all of Vademon's limbs were occupied with the wolf's lethal teeth. This time he managed to grab it, and hooked it to his belt beside his own without a second thought.

Garurumon roared and unleashed a second stream of blue fire at Vademon, now far more damaging. Vademon retaliated with his ray gun. The two forces collided into each other and exploded, knocking Yamato back against a far counter.

"You're no match for me," Vademon said indignantly. "I am the master of my private universe." He pressed his bony fingers to his lips and blew Garurumon a provoking kiss. Garurumon jerked back like he'd taken a hit to the ribs. Dazed, his head lolled to the side.

"Garurumon!" Yamato shouted in warning as Vademon's grand finale fired at the wolf out of thin air: energy-infused bullets in the images of planets and meteors catapulted straight toward him. Garurumon couldn't keep on his feet. His head hit the floor and he tumbled over. For one terrible moment, Yamato wondered if this could be it for them.

He swallowed hard. Now was not the time to lose faith in their team. "Digivolve again," he forced out.

They had gone so long unable to reach the Ultimate level that after Gabumon had absorbed the power of Azulongmon's Digi-core, they had to retrain themselves to think of digivolving to Ultimate as an option. The Digi-core's energy had stayed with them even after MaloMyotismon was soundly defeated, but in peacetime who needed it?

He knew Gabumon didn't have the strength to warp to Mega right now. Not without Agumon around to give him a boost. WereGarurumon might be a stretch for his partner too. But no matter how he looked at their dilemma, Yamato couldn't find any better way out of it.

"Garurumon, get up! Digivolve again!"

"You presume a lot, pretty boy!" Vademon wrapped his tentacles around Garurumon's snout, effectively trapping his most dangerous weapon. Garurumon was still stunned, legs twitching in erratic spasms.

"Now, hand me that Digivice – and yours as well. I promise that after I extract your curiosity, I will allow you to spend the rest of your life within an educational and politically correct dreamscape. What would you like to absorb? Ceramics of the Bronze Age? The life cycle of the carpenter beetle? Or perhaps mathematics is more to your liking; let's see how long it takes you to discover _ten_ odd perfect numbers!"

Imprisoned forever in the soul-sucking drama that is high school? No curiosity would be a blessing.

"What did you do with Taichi?" Yamato demanded from his undignified position sprawled out on the floor. So what if he didn't _look_ too intimidating, with his hair disarrayed, much less visual kei and more _Labyrinth_-era David Bowie. He didn't abuse the rebellious rock star with entitlement issues persona as a rule, but it had its uses now and then. Like when his embarrassingly gung-ho agent tried to force him to say something sappy and superficial on the radio to make the fan girls swoon. And when ugly digital aliens threatened him with ray guns.

"Return the Digivice to me," Vademon said, waving said gun at him.

"Get that out of my face," Yamato snapped.

His anti-authority intimidation technique didn't appear to be working. Time to resort to empty threats.

"That machine has something to do with all this, right?" Yamato thought back to the vial and the black chip. His eyes narrowed. "I would tell the truth if I were you. You'll be swarmed by a horde of fully-evolved Digimon any minute now and they won't bother to take names before they kick what little ass you have. But if you come clean to me, I'll see what I can do to iron things out."

"I hardly think _I'm_ at _your_ mercy," Vademon scoffed. He gave Garurumon a poke in the side for emphasis.

"Glad I'm not you, then."

"Ya… mato…" Garurumon managed in spite of his muzzle. He scrabbled at the floor with his hind legs. An instant later, he'd recovered from the daze Vademon's attack had put him in. Thrashing against him with all his weight, he sent Vademon hurtling in the other direction. The ray gun went flying. Snarling, Garurumon glared daggers at his enemy, before he was enveloped in light and transformed into WereGarurumon, ripped, armed, and powerful to the _n_th degree. Before Vademon could react, he pounced, snapping at his face and laying him flat with his brass knuckles.

"Waaugh – Alright – _Alright!"_ Yamato smirked as Vademon capitulated and worked on hiding his relief. The maniac had been bested by a Chosen's Ultimate-level Digimon before (and MegaKabuterimon wouldn't mind another go, Yamato thought wryly), and anyway, he had no spine to speak of. "I'll tell you whatever you want, just let me go!"

With WereGarurumon playing bad cop to his good cop, Yamato squatted next to Vademon's swollen head and calmly folded his hands.

"I think we got off on the wrong foot… Or tentacle." He peered over Vademon and bared his teeth. "Hello."

"… Hello," said Vademon.

"Hello," rumbled WereGarurumon, and Vademon squeaked.

"Gentleman that I am, I'll ask you nicely one more time," Yamato said. "What. Did. You. Do. To. My. Friend."

Vademon licked his lips. His attention kept darting to the black chip and the vial.

"Did you take his curiosity? Is that what you put in there?"

"I was strictly ordered not to," Vademon replied, sounding put out. "It would have made a lovely addition to my collection. Not quite the same quality a specimen as that _other_ human's, but –"

Yamato cursed. "I don't wanna hear about your sick pastimes. Who ordered you?"

"I was commissioned. I have many talents, you know, that a simpleton like you could never fathom. But now that I have what I was instructed to obtain, I don't need the boy anymore. You're free to get him. I would not have stopped you if you hadn't attacked me first."

Mouth open with a ready retort, Yamato's shock must have registered on his face, because Vademon shot him a patronizing smirk and rolled his eyes. "That was another of my orders, to allow the boy to escape by his own means after I finished with him. I pride myself that he remembers nothing of what went on up until now. He's just through that far door. What's left of him, at least."

With a vicious growl, WereGarurumon leaned more of his weight on Vademon's windpipe.

"I like it when you're feisty," Yamato told him.

"Thank you," his partner said graciously.

"Ack – you – _get off –"_

"Not until you tell us _what's in that vial."_ Yamato fought the urge to just have WereGarurumon knock the Digimon out. There could be a time limit to how long Taichi could last without whatever it was Vademon had stolen, and if so they needed answers _now._

"Guh… data," Vademon choked out.

Yamato frowned, and gestured for WereGarurumon to ease up. "What? Data? What kind of data?"

"… A code – a… blueprint of sorts…"

Before Yamato could order him to knock it off with the riddles, before WereGarurumon even had a chance to pick up the new scent, they heard the door creak open, accompanied by the sound of tinkling bells. Yamato turned with his brow raised to face the newcomer, but a heavy stick to the side of his head required that he come up with a different plan.

He heard a POP and a THWAP and WereGarurumon started howling, Vademon reclaimed his ray gun and pulled the trigger, dust mushroomed in the air and a jar of something-or-other, probably radioactive, spilled green and oily at Yamato's feet. He covered his head and rolled into a ball, blinded by the dust cloud. Someone let out an ear-splitting screech. Vademon, tripping over his own excessive limbs, shouted, _"No!"_ only to be silenced by WereGarurumon trampling him to get to the door. The air clearing, Yamato caught a glimpse of a small, monkey-like creature with a long nose dart out the door with all the agility of a frightened hare. Only it wasn't frightened, it was cackling.

"Toodles, uglies!" the critter called over its shoulder. WereGarurumon made yet another energetic leap to grab it, but it disappeared in a puff of pinkish smoke and the werewolf ended up crashing head-first into a wall.

"It got away!" WereGarurumon roared, latching onto either side of the doorframe and sticking his head outside. His claws left deep grooves in the wood.

"Well, you get points for enthusiasm," Yamato said with a shrug. "What was that thing?"

"Whatever it was, it took the chip," WereGarurumon said.

Yamato stared at him, horrified. "What?!"

A low chuckle came from under a nearby counter. Vademon dragged himself into the open, too exhausted to keep his head up off the floor. Furious and scared, Yamato bent over him and grabbed his clammy shoulders.

"Why are you laughing?" he demanded. "What's gonna happen to Taichi without the data in that vial?"

"I don't know!" Vademon wheezed, his head rolling side-to-side. "It's none of _my_ business! _I_ am only a mere collector – a connoisseur, if you will – and my commissioner is far, far out of your league!"

"Who? Who commissioned you?" Yamato gave Vademon a rough shake. _"Who,_ Vademon?"

"Guhhh…" Vademon gasped; Yamato realized with a jolt that he was dying. His heart raced. Yes, he and WereGarurumon had been severe with him, violent – but not to the point of _killing_ him. Not that he was likely to stay dead. MegaKabuterimon defeated Vademon to the point of deletion once before, but over the many years that passed in Digiworld during their Earth-based battle against Myotismon, he'd regenerated, retaining most of his past memories and predilections. Some Digimon, the Chosen had observed, were just very stubborn. It often happened that the stubborn ones were also huge pains in their collective ass.

"He's out," came WereGarurumon's voice, gently breaking through the fog around Yamato's head. "Yamato. Let's go get Taichi."

Taichi. Yes. He stood up, staring at the limp body of Vademon which had yet to erase itself. Maybe he would still recover. Normally Yamato wouldn't get too hung up on losing a creep like Vademon. He clearly never washed, for one thing. Yamato had a lump the size of a melon on his head because of him. But if he died, their first and only real clue as to what they were fighting would die with him.

Pivoting on his heel, Yamato headed towards the room Vademon had identified as Taichi's prison. The door was metal and covered in inscriptions. With a flash of insight, Yamato pulled out his cell phone and took a picture of the new code.

He put a hand on the knob, but pulled it back with a hiss. Sweltering heat emanated from the metal. Which could only mean one thing.

Fire.

* * *

** Koushirou's Log  
Mt. Iwakaze  
17:20**

** Everyone,**

** There's a very good chance that my group has found Vademon's hideout. Yamato-san has taken an underground trail and discovered a series of tunnels. I was able to map the tunnels – they're placed way too sensibly to be the products of nature. They are constructed passageways all leading to the same mainframe.**

** This is the first real clue that we've had. Yamato-san is going on ahead. I suggest we meet up and take an alternate route to meet him, and hopefully Taichi-san, inside. I am sending new coordinates based on the map.**

** Good luck.**

** Koushirou**

* * *

"Looks like we're finally on the right trail," Sora announced with a smile as she read Koushirou's message aloud. "Good thing too, I'm exhausted. It's already after five."

"At least it's cooled down since it rained," Biyomon said cheerfully, trekking along beside her partner.

"We should eat something before heading off," Sora said. "Replenish our strength, because it's probably worth it to digivolve and get there faster. Let's see, I've got sandwiches for everyone. Hikari-chan, which do you want, turkey or veggie?"

Hikari wasn't listening. Hadn't been since Sora got to the part where Koushirou wrote "and hopefully Taichi-san." She was walking on air. Pretty soon she thought she'd transcend the atmosphere itself.

"We are going to find him," she said confidently, twirling with her arms stretched out. "We're going to find my brother soon. I can feel it."

"I'm sure you're right," Takeru said, sounding the exact opposite. "But we should still be wary. This is a clue, like Koushirou-san said, but who knows what we'll find inside the caves?"

_"Ta-ke-ru-kun,"_ Hikari repeated in a tone of friendly mocking. She walked over to him and squeezed his cheeks between her palms. "I'm telling you. I _know_ we're going to find him and he's going to be okay. And that goes for your brother too. I'm usually right, aren't I?"

"Yes, you are – usually," he mumbled, rolling his eyes.

"This time too," she insisted, and moved his head up and down in a nod.

"Geez," he said when she released him. "With all that positive thinking, maybe you should have the Crest of Hope instead of me."

"I'd probably put it to better use," she said lightly, wishing he'd come out of his funk already. She'd _missed_ him while he'd been grounded, but now that they were back together he seemed determined to find nothing but plague and pestilence everywhere.

"Right now all I want is the Crest of All-You-Can-Eat Buffets!" Miyako burst in, lunging between them with one hand on her hip and the other pointed at the sky. "Taichi-san owes us a treat after all this, am I right? Give it up for delicious free food!"

At least _someone_ knew how to celebrate. Hikari joined Miyako in a chorus of cheers. The girls grabbed hands, locking Takeru in the middle of their circle, and pranced around him in wild laughter.

Takeru lifted his arms above his head. "Um, ladies, what are you doing?"

"You're a May Pole!"

"A May Pole!"

"It's not even May!" Takeru objected loudly above their clamor. "Cut it out – what – oh, come on, that's just unfair," he sighed, as Patamon and Hawkmon spun up in spirals around his head, making odd animal noises. He dropped his arms dejectedly and looked around for support.

"Delicious free food!"

"Free cake and pastries!"

Takeru spotted Gatomon perched on a rock outcropping nearby, watching them. "Gatomon! Please tell me you know how to turn them off," he pleaded.

The feline Digimon regarded them with the look of a world-weary mother who had quite given up on her uncontrollable children. "Trust me, Takeru, the pain'll pass quicker if you just indulge them," she said.

Hikari broke away from Miyako and swooped down on her partner, crushing her in a hug. "Can I help it if I'm happy? This is the first good news we've had all day!"

"And it'll be the last if we don't move out!" Sora shouted. "Come on, everyone grab a sandwich and let's go."

They dutifully ate their sandwiches, and Gatomon, Patamon and Hawkmon armor-digivolved to Nefertimon, Pegasusmon, and Halsemon. Sora joined Miyako on Halsemon's back. They each plugged Koushirou's coordinates into their D-Terminals and took off.

From her seat on Nefertimon's back, Hikari watched the steep mountainside merge into parched sandy desert. They were flying east. The mountains there were more densely populated with trees and plant life, she noted; Mt. Senrei was almost entirely barren. She clutched her pack, thinking of her brother's shoe stuffed inside. Presenting him with that matchless shoe (after hugging him so tight that his lungs popped) was all she wanted in the world.

"We never ran into any desert on File Island, did we?" she heard Takeru ask Sora. "It's Server that has that big desert with the pyramids and the Sphinx with the dislocated jaw."

"There's some desert on File Island." Sora shook her head. "Remember? At Mt. Miharashi, where we found that village of Yokomon. It's mostly savannah, but parts of it are definitely desert. File Island's got a little bit of everything."

"Oh, right. I guess my memory's a bit hazy."

Hikari listened with interest while they reminisced. And perhaps a little envy. If she hadn't been sick that fateful day – August 1st, 1999 – those memories of File Island would be hers too. Her friends had taken her and the other junior Chosen sight-seeing in Digiworld before, so she'd visited a lot of the places the first seven had encountered on Server. But they rarely made a trip to File Island. She herself had never been, and plus the older Chosen were conflicted about going back – Taichi, Sora and Koushirou were usually fine with it, but the others felt their darker memories were of that island, rather than of the continents.

Takeru in particular had issues with it. After all, Infinity Mountain was on File, a place that still haunted his sleep. He'd once said that if Primary Village weren't there, he'd stay away from it completely. She was surprised he'd brought up File at all.

He was really acting weird.

"I can't imagine what it must've been like to wander around in Digiworld all alone, without a guide," Miyako said as they soared over a narrow brown river. "My early days were scary enough, and I had you guys for mentors."

"They weren't alone, they had us," Biyomon protested.

Pegasusmon nodded. "We didn't know much of anything either, but we protected them with everything we had."

Warm feelings rushed through her. Her fingers reached to the scruff of Nefertimon's neck and gave her a scratch between her armor. Something Daisuke had said a little over a week ago came to her mind – a simple thing, but very true:

_"I like Digiworld. I like Veemon. I don't think it's their fault that… you know."_

_I like you too, Nefertimon,_ Hikari told her partner in her heart. _I don't regret a thing._

Not even the horror of being separated from her parents by Myotismon's legion of flunkies. Not even the pain of watching them hurt her friends, or giving herself up to save them. Not a single thing.

Well, of course there was one thing. A friend. A friend who had helped her, saved her, risked everything for her before he even knew she was worth the effort.

A friend they'd lost. Wizardmon.

She fell silent for a bit while the others traded stories. Nefertimon kept the ride smooth, occasionally talking to Pegasusmon; Hikari wasn't really following their conversation.

"Are you okay?" her partner asked, drawing Hikari from her thoughts.

"Mmm? Yeah, I'm fine. Just quiet," Hikari said.

Nefertimon allowed Pegasusmon and Takeru to pass them. "I want to go back to Fuji TV," she said after a moment.

Hikari marveled at the way their thoughts lined up, like they always did – Hikari feeling so deeply and her partner empathizing. And this, of course, _this_ was different from anything else. Especially for Nefertimon – for her even more than for Hikari herself.

"Yeah," she said, "it's about that time, anyway. Mimi-san is here, and Takeru-kun's allowed out again. Let's go this weekend."

"Okay," Nefertimon nodded, her face expressionless as ever, but Hikari could sense her thanks.

Her eyes flitted back to Takeru, scanning the sky from Pegasusmon's back. His usually smiling mouth was a hard line of worry. Not like him at all. She thought back to visiting him after they'd recovered his D3, how she'd meant to make him feel better after such a harrowing ordeal and how instead he, in his Takeru way, never leaning but always lifting others up, had listened to her fears for her brother and kept telling _her_ things would be all right. Really, he'd never faced what had happened with Hosoda Seiki. Not in front of her at least, and she doubted he'd dealt with it much while he'd been boxed in at home. Natsuko was just being a mother, but she'd probably done more harm than good by punishing him when what he really needed was to be with friends who understood what had him freaked out.

Now he couldn't get Hosoda off his mind. Some thought was consuming him, something he wouldn't share, but it had been incubating this whole past week and honest to God it scared her. If Taichi weren't in trouble right this very moment, Takeru would be her number one priority.

She was a little mad at her brother for getting in the way.

* * *

It was really, _really_ hot.

Sweat soaked Taichi's underarms, down his legs, on his face. He wondered how much time had past. Not enough for him to pass out from smoke inhalation, but he had to be getting close. The fire was closing in on him. Though he could no longer walk through it without getting burned, he'd noticed something else peculiar about the blaze: it appeared to come out of nowhere. The entire room was stone and metal, with nothing in it – not even a mound of charcoal or wood. And he couldn't smell any gas. Besides, the smoke was the wrong color.

He looked at the symbols on the door again. He'd listened to Koushirou lecture about Digicode so often that he had no trouble recognizing them. But analyzing them was another issue. He parsed them as best he could and came up with nothing. Koushirou would know what to do. But his cell phone was missing, along with his Digivice.

He was out of ideas.

_Wish you were here to give me a hand, Agumon._ Taichi bent to a squat and buried his head in his arms. _You'd digivolve and we'd be out of here in no time, and Sora and everyone would come running over panicked with worry and we'd make fun of them for being so uptight. How am I ever going to prove to Yamato that he's got a stick up his ass if I'm the reason he thinks that everything must always be Serious Business?_

He kind of laughed, but it faded into a sigh. Long ago he'd decided that if he died in some kind of tragic accident, it would be a drowning or a fall off a cliff or a club on the head. Never by fire. Fire was Agumon's element; burning alive seemed almost treacherous.

He didn't move for a while, sitting still like a weird garden statue and letting himself feel miserable. And then there was a BANG.

And then another BANG.

_bang – bang – bang – bang –_

Taichi counted ten consecutive bangs, coming from outside the door.

He jumped to his feet. "Hey! I'm in here! Get me out!" he cried between hacking coughs, not really expecting anyone to hear him. The metal had to be thick, after all…

"Taichi?"

"Yamato!? Holy crap." Without thinking, Taichi pressed up against the door to better hear the muffled, but extremely welcome voice. The heat made him back up a step, but still he leaned closer to the metal than was probably safe. "Yamato, is that you?"

"It's me. Are you in one piece?"

"Yeah, er – maybe two or three."

"Stay out of the way. WereGarurumon's gonna break you out."

Taichi leapt to the side. The banging took up again and enormous dents appeared in the door. Taichi grinned at the mental image of WereGarurumon judo-kicking the hard metal. Suddenly there was a huge noise – more of a POW than a BANG – and a protrusion the shape of WereGarurumon's skull jutted out.

"Er, Yamato, is your partner all right?"

"… Um…"

Taichi slapped his forehead. "This is the worst rescue I've ever had the embarrassment of playing the damsel for!"

"Hey, if you hadn't gone all loopy and _insane, _you wouldn't need rescuing in the first place! So keep the criticisms to yourself!"

"Sorry," Taichi said sheepishly. "Um. Can I do anything to help?"

"Do _you_ wanna head butt solid metal?"

"Aw, Yama, you haven't changed a bit. Always so practical."

"Shut up." Taichi heard his friends murmuring to each other but couldn't make out what they said. Then Yamato called out again.

"Stand back. We're trying again."

He heard WereGarurumon pound across the floor. With a deafening howl, he flung his entire body into the door, hitting first with his slashing claws and then pushing all his weight against it. Taichi watched as the metal ripped open as if it were paper-thin, and two giant lupine hands took hold of either side to tear it further. Once he'd made a good-sized hole, WereGarurumon stuck his head through and looked around for Taichi. Taichi rushed over and gave his snout a grateful pat.

"Quick, climb over," the wolf rumbled, taking hold of Taichi's shirt and helping him over the gap without touching the scorching metal.

He'd barely set foot on the other side before Yamato grabbed his shoulders.

"You idiot! We got so lost, I can't believe we actually found you." Yamato squeezed, too hard, too tight, and Taichi loved him for it. "Tell me the truth – are you hurt?"

"Just tired. I smell like smoke. And I lost my shoes," Taichi said.

Yamato looked at his feet. "Wow, so you did."

"Somehow I kept all my toes even in that fire. It's weird, I held on to the same pair of shoes the whole time when we first came to Digiworld. I think I'm losing my touch."

"You're _definitely_ losing your touch. Of all the hare-brained things you've ever done, this takes the cake and eats it too."

"Yeah, well." Taichi scratched his head. "Sorry, man."

Yamato's grip slowly loosened. Taichi didn't know what his friend had gone through to find him, but it was obvious from the look of him that it had been rough. His clothes, including a jacket Taichi knew he loved, were dirty and coated in grime. There was a little smear of dried blood on the side of his head. WereGarurumon was slouching a bit, still on his feet but drooping with exhaustion.

"You can punch me tomorrow," Taichi said by way of thanks.

Yamato's mouth tipped. He gave Taichi's shoulder a good-natured clap.

"Okay, so you've rescued me," Taichi said, tapping into an energy reserve he could barely believe he still had. "I am eternally in your debt. You may have either my hand in marriage or my first born child, yada yada yada."

"What, we don't get any money? No lifetime's supply of chocolate?" WereGarurumon managed to actually look upset.

"Guys!" Yamato held up his hands. "In case you haven't noticed, this place is still on fire. Save the banter for when we're somewhere safe."

He handed Taichi his Digivice, but his cell phone was nowhere to be found. Vademon's body was still lying like a heap of rags on the floor. Taichi stepped up to it, wide-eyed.

"You have no idea what he did to you?" Yamato asked.

Taichi shook his head. "I don't even remember how I got here. Wait… alright, I was on a mountain somewhere, and I guess he caught me…"

He frowned and touched his head. Remembering hurt. The last clear memory he had was of wandering aimlessly around some wasteland, and losing his shoes.

"He took something," Yamato went on. "I figured it was your curiosity, but he said it wasn't, and you don't seem any different at least. He said he was commissioned by someone to take it," he said with an anxious look.

Shrugging, Taichi ambled away without answering, keeping it casual. "Did you email the others?" he asked.

Yamato blinked. "No, not yet. Hold on. WereGarurumon –"

"On it," said his partner, and de-digivolved to Garurumon. He led the way to the exit. The Chosen followed, Yamato tapping out a text on his cell.

"You look bushed," Taichi said to Garurumon.

An amber eye rolled on him. "It was worth it now that we've found you."

"Thanks, bud," Taichi said, and meant it. "By the way, why didn't Agumon come along?"

"Gennai said it'd be better to leave him behind," Yamato answered. "And, actually, we didn't see him at all at Gennai's house."

"He wasn't there." Garurumon cocked his head at Yamato, confused. "He left days ago. Gennai sent him on a mission with Centarumon."

"He didn't mention that." Yamato raised his brow. "I've texted Koushirou. Get on, I need a sandwich and a nap ASAP." He'd already settled himself on Garurumon's back.

Taichi made a face at the thought of riding a wolf bareback for a long time. He wasn't used to it the way Yamato was. "What should we do about this?" he said, jerking his head in Vademon's direction as he mounted Garurumon.

"Leave him? He's out cold. I just want to get out of here."

Taichi nodded and Garurumon carried them into another room. Yamato showed Taichi the map, and together they plotted the most convenient path out of the cave. Unfortunately, it meant going back through the tunnels. But there was nothing else for it, so into the dark mountain underbelly they went.

* * *

** Ken's Log  
Closing in on Mt. Iwakaze  
17:42**

** Almost there. Any news from Yamato-san?**

* * *

** Koushirou's Log  
Mesa Forte**

** Nothing yet. Sora-san's group and mine have joined up. How quickly do you think you can get here?**

* * *

** Ken's Log  
Mt. Iwakaze**

** Approx. 30-40 minutes? It's hard to be certain because our pace varies. FYI, we have injuries. We'll hurry as much as we can but it might take a while. Keep us posted on any changes.**

* * *

** Sora's Log  
Mesa Forte**

** Injuries? What happened? Who did you fight?**

* * *

** Ken's Log  
Mt. Iwakaze**

** I'll explain when we get there.**

* * *

"We are being herded," Daisuke hissed to Ken, who had to force himself not to remind his best friend for the umpteenth time that the Digimon had hypersensitive ears. "In the _'flocks of sheep the shepherds watch by night'_ sense of the word."

"Daisuke, we were trounced by Baihumon last time," Ken shot back, annoyed. "In the _'completely and utterly destroyed'_ sense of the word."

"So we're just going to follow him around and do whatever he asks? How is that accomplishing anything?"

"Centarumon asked us to, and he's the only one with any idea who this guy is. Look, don't think of it as surrendering. Think of it as strategically biding our time."

"Strategy, Daisuke!" DemiVeemon chirped. Since waking up he'd been a non-stop chatterbox. "You like strategy."

"No, I like pounding the guy who hurt my friends until he's flat as a pancake and I get to eat him for breakfast," Daisuke growled, throwing Baihumon a look of contempt. Ken decided telling him that look only made him seem five years old would be an exercise in futility.

DemiVeemon bounced. "Will you eat him with maple syrup? Or with cinnamon? Or with blueberries? Or with –"

"I'll eat him _plain_ in one big bite," Daisuke proclaimed.

"You'll hurt your teeth that way," Minomon piped up, sounding genuinely concerned.

"I'll replace every tooth I lose eating him with one made of titanium."

"For goodness's sake, Daisuke, don't you know any other metals?" Ken sighed.

Daisuke turned his scowl on him. "So what if I do? Titanium is awesome. Titanium was named after the Titans."

"Titanium is what everyone uses for dental implants," Ken said under his breath.

"Are you talking about the football team?" DemiVeemon asked.

Daisuke launched into an explanation of the Titans in Greek mythology and Ken fell behind with Minomon. The sun was obscured again but the clouds looked far less threatening. They were puffy and white, lazy-looking cumulus clouds.

They looked like sheep.

"Gomamon still hasn't woken up," Minomon said.

Ken glanced over at Jou, dragging his feet behind Centarumon, gingerly carrying his unconscious partner. He'd only let someone else hold him once since their trek started, and that was only so he could redo the bandages on Iori's arms.

It wasn't that Ken didn't sympathize with Jou and Gomamon, or that he didn't feel the same frustrating anger that kept hounding Daisuke. He did. But he couldn't help being careful about it, waiting to see what Baihumon would do, following Centarumon's directions. If they fought, they would not win. But Daisuke wouldn't accept that without a fight… ironically.

His best friend was fidgeting with pent up energy and Jou was itching to dash off to Gennai's at the first sign that Gomamon was getting worse. He, Ken, needed to remain steady, to make up for the lack of balance among the others.

Well, not all the others. There was Iori. Firm, stoic, reliable Iori. He brought up the rear along with Baihumon and had said barely a word since they'd set off.

Ken watched him for a second before noticing that he'd broken his silence. Baihumon was talking to him and he was talking back. Snippets of their conversation drifted Ken's way: Baihumon said something about "Oikawa" and Ken's head snapped up.

He maneuvered to the back of the group and fell into step with Iori. This close, he noticed how the blood had drained from Iori's face. Baihumon abruptly dropped off mid-sentence and fixed his penetrating, wild eyes on Ken.

"You," he said in his deep, resonating voice. "You are Ichijouji Ken."

Ken and Iori shared a glance. "Yes," Ken replied cautiously, mentally preparing himself.

"You are the Digimon Emperor," Baihumon pressed on.

_"Was_ the Digimon Emperor," Iori countered hotly. Ken couldn't help a small smile.

"I'm a Chosen," he said. "First and foremost."

Something in Baihumon's expression hardened. "Do you think you're some kind of victim? Hundreds of Digimon suffered greatly under your hand."

The smile died. "I have a lot of things to make up for," Ken said softly. "That's why I'm here. Because I… I want to change the damage I did."

"Ken-chan is a good person," Minomon put in, waving his stubby arms frantically. "The Emperor was just how he expressed all the pain he was in. And he was manipulated by Digimon too!"

"What manipulated?" Baihumon demanded, baring his teeth, each roughly the length of a baseball bat. "Were you brainwashed? Threatened? Attacked?"

"Emotional abuse is still abuse," Iori said in Ken's defense.

It was hard for Ken to keep his cool under these conditions. What had he just been thinking about balancing out Daisuke's and Jou's unstable moods? "I know nothing can fix what I did. I just want the chance to seek forgiveness."

"So your quest for absolution is selfishly motivated after all," Baihumon snarled. "And I thought there was a human involved with you. Oikawa Yukio."

"Who was possessed by MaloMyotismon," Ken said.

"Oikawa Yukio, who was so bitter that Digiworld rejected him, that he forced his own way in, creating digital abominations in the process."

Ken's mouth went dry. Abominations? Arukenimon, Mummymon – certainly he hated them, they'd helped manipulate him for years, but they had cared about each other in their own way. BlackWarGreymon was still a sensitive subject for all the Chosen. And as for Oikawa…

Ken peered down at Iori and saw a muscle working in his jaw. His hands were balled into fists at his sides.

"They weren't abominations," Ken retorted, meeting Baihumon's sharp stare with an equally unyielding look of his own. "They were Digimon with hearts. And maybe if Oikawa hadn't been rejected all those years ago, he would never have become vulnerable to MaloMyotismon's possession."

Baihumon breathed heavily through his nostrils, suddenly tight-lipped but keeping an unblinking eye on Ken. Iori tugged on Ken's sleeve.

"You okay?"

Ken nodded. He felt miles away. This was only the second time he'd come to Digiworld in weeks, and both times something had happened to remind him of those painful days as the Digimon Emperor. Usually, he was accepted wherever he went, not only because he was with the heroic Chosen Children but also for his own merits. He'd always be grateful for the Digimon who let him in whole-heartedly. But maybe he'd become complacent, starting to think his crimes were forgotten as well as forgiven.

"He's wrong, Ken-chan." Minomon pressed his face into Ken's shirt, nuzzling his chest. "You were as much a victim as anyone. It's not okay to use anyone like that, especially not a kid. And we've put our lives on the line for the world over and over. If that's not enough atonement for what we did, I don't know what is."

Ken cupped a hand around Minomon's pint-sized body and gave him a soft, grateful squeeze. He didn't trust himself to speak.

"Hey!" Daisuke came running up to them. "Guess what – Mesa Forte is right around the corner here! We're really close!" He stopped a few paces away and instantly looked concerned. "Ken, what happened?"

Swallowing hard, Ken tried to compose himself. Daisuke opened his mouth to say something when all of a sudden Baihumon took off. His enormous shadow fell over them as he took a flying leap into the air and landed a few yards ahead.

"Oh no," Jou said with a gasp. "Guys, look – Takeru-kun and Hikari-kun are out there!"

They watched in horror as Baihumon bounded towards the airborne Pegasusmon and Nefertimon, their partners surely nearby. Squinting, Ken could just make out a group of people who could only be the other Chosen. None of them had noticed the immensely powerful and bloodthirsty Digimon racing their way.

"We have to stop him!" Iori cried. "Armadillomon –"

But Centarumon trotted over to them and held out an arm. "Wait." He swiveled his single red eye on Baihumon. "Don't do anything yet."

Baihumon bellowed with such strength that splinters of rock cracked and fell from jagged formations. Pegasusmon beat his wings and blasts of energy rained down from them. Light beamed from Nefertimon's headdress and concentrated on Baihumon. The two attacks combined, hitting Baihumon with staggering force. Baihumon barely flinched, and actually quickened his pace.

"This is bad," Daisuke cried.

The two armor Digimon were now joined by Halsemon, Birdramon, Kabuterimon, and Togemon. The Chosen were wasting no time amping it up. But all Ken could think of was Paildramon, frozen in time, encased in gold from head to toe and unable to fight back. As if fulfilling his dire predictions, every attack the Digimon made rebounded on them and gave Baihumon the opening he needed. He dived in on Pegasusmon and slashed at him with his armored claw. Nefertimon pushed Pegasusmon aside and took some of the blow herself; the two Digimon immediately de-digivolved and fell from the sky.

"That's it, we _have_ to help them." Daisuke gritted his teeth and pulled out his D3. "DemiVeemon, I know you're beyond exhausted, but do you have it in you to fight one more time?"

"Definitely," his fiery partner squeaked, somehow managing to look deadly serious in spite of his marshmallow-y body.

"And you guys?"

Armadillomon and Minomon nodded.

"This is not how I was hoping things would play out," Ken said, retrieving his own D3.

"Me either," Daisuke admitted, "but if we can join up with the others and hold Baihumon off for a while, maybe Taichi-san and Yamato-san will –"

"Stop," Centarumon interrupted.

They all stared at him. "Put your Digivices away," he said.

"How can we?" Iori cried. "Centarumon, look, they don't stand a chance – !"

"You have no choice. You must leave them to fight on their own."

"Have you lost your mind?" Daisuke exclaimed, incredulous. "He'll kill them. We're going."

"You cannot." The centaur placed himself between the Chosen and their friends and spread his arms. "If you do, you will be in direct violation of Gennai's agreement with Baihumon. You must watch. You must trust Gennai."

Jou's mouth fell open. _"Gennai_ says we can't fight back?"

"I told you," Centarumon said, "that what I would ask you to do would go against all your instincts. This is your test. But rest assured that it is all part of Gennai's plan."

Daisuke looked at Ken. In the late afternoon light, his goggles gleamed like a pair of beacons. Iori was practically shaking, and Jou's hand on his shoulder seemed like all there was preventing him from tearing away from the group completely. His Jogress partner had just been attacked, after all.

"There's really nothing we can do?" Ken asked, feeling torn.

Centarumon bowed his head. "We can only wait."

* * *

**Chapter Notes:**

1.] According to the Digimon Wiki, what's called a "fractal code" in Frontier is referred to as "Digi Code" in Japanese. Similarly, _what_ I'm referring to as Digicode, a written syllabary for Digimon, is called "Digi-moji" ("digital written characters") in the original. As far as I know, Digicode was only referred to once or twice in the dub of Adventure, though you can see it all around Digiworld and on Digimon, but if someone remembers otherwise please let me know. So I'm willing to take a little bit of liberty with both terms, but here a fractal code is essentially the same as in Frontier, and Digicode is mainly a writing system.

2.] _Visual kei:_ style of Japanese musicians that includes elaborate costumes and hairstyles.

_Thanks again for reading and all your wonderful feedback! Now that camp's started again, I spend most of the time chasing small children to prevent them from doing fun things like eating paste and hammering their own thumbs in the woodcraft room. So it may be a while for the next chapter, but I'll be working hard on it. In the meantime, I'd love to hear from you._

_Also, er, why do I fail so hard thinking up chapter titles… – Fizz_


	13. An Equal and Opposite Reaction

_A/N: Hi, everyone. Once again, I'm sorry for that pretty substantial hiatus. Are you still out there? Hellooo? Hellooooo! *cough* Thanks so much for bearing with me and for your kind reviews in the meantime. It's been a whirlwind senior year and I managed to graduate with honors. I have a job lined up too - in August I'll be back in Japan, teaching. This is especially good news for you guys because I literally have nothing to do until then except sit on the couch and write ASB. I wish I were kidding. May the indentation of my butt cheeks forever adorn these leathery cushions._

_To tell the truth, I am so sick of this battle arc! It's been going on forever, feels like. I promise we will finally reach its conclusion in the next chapter and then we'll move on. So looking forward to that! It's not that I dislike it, I just found writing these battle scenes while still coming up with interesting characterizations a real challenge. Obviously I have a lot of room for improvement as a writer. But we will get over this hump and hopefully you'll think it's worth it. ... For some reason I feel like I wanted to ask you all a question about rice. But I have no idea why._

_Brief recap: To find out more about why he's digitizing, Taichi sneaked to Digiworld with Daisuke, but they were attacked by Babamon and Gonmon and separated. The others chased after them and met up with Daisuke at Gennai's house. Learning that Vademon abducted Taichi, they split up into three groups to search the mountains. Meanwhile, Taichi met with an illusion(?) of Ichijouji Osamu who told him various creepy things blah blah blah. Yamato found Vademon's caves, where he learned that Vademon had stolen some kind of data from Taichi. The vial of data was stolen by Gonmon, and Yamato rescued Taichi. Daisuke's group was attacked by the Digital Sovereign Baihumon, who held them captive until Centarumon arrived talking about some agreement between Baihumon and Gennai. The Chosen tried to regroup, but Baihumon attacked them. Centarumon warned Daisuke's group not to join the fight._

_Bon appetit!_

* * *

**Chapter Thirteen**

**An Equal And Opposite Reaction**

"_We two boys together clinging,  
One the other never leaving,  
Up and down the roads going, North and South excursions making,  
Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching,  
Arm'd and fearless, eating, drinking, sleeping, loving."  
- Walt Whitman,_ Leaves of Grass .56

** Deep in Vademon's tunnels**

Yamato was quiet as they navigated the tunnels, answering Taichi's questions about the other Chosen with only a few clipped words at a time. Taichi didn't mind. Exhaustion crept over him like a curtain, his throat felt scratchy, and in a sleep-numbed haze he could soon think of nothing but the throb of his singed feet.

But in the dark his mind returned to Vademon's chamber. Not to the disturbing jars and canisters of stolen data – but to the empty room, the intangible fire, and most of all, to Ichijouji Osamu. Or his digitally rendered face, at least. And the voice from the flames, calm and oddly indecisive, asking when Taichi would like to be killed as casually as if they were discussing how to cook a steak: _"medium or well done?"_

He wanted to tell Yamato. He _needed_ to tell someone, but he knew he only wanted to tell so that he could get some sort of explanation, and Yamato wouldn't have that. There would be no explanations, just two worriers. But he would have to tell everyone eventually, because secrets in Digiworld always came back to bite you. And Yamato would probably punch his face in when he found out Taichi'd kept something like this from him.

For now, though, he was content to let Yamato maneuver them through the underground labyrinth, and if Yamato was concerned by his friend's uncharacteristic brooding, he didn't mention it. Probably his mind was lost in a whirl of other thoughts, not the least concern for the teammates left on the mountainside, and for the partner Digimon who'd already over-extended himself. Taichi smiled to himself; no one who considered Yamato aloof knew the real Yamato, the one who latched on to every careless little detail in a conversation and analyzed them until he found a hidden meaning, whose bouts of moodiness sprang from deep-seated insecurity that his friends loved him as fully as he loved them. If Taichi were in charge right now, he'd be thinking forward, weighing possibilities, strategizing. And while Yamato knew enough to do the same, he didn't share Taichi's optimism. Sentiment always tipped the scale in his mind.

And yet it was his sensitive, overprotective friend who was now in the position of rescuer and guide, rather than the sunny and confident leader who, to be honest, had been a regular storm cloud lately. In fact the whole reason they were in this mess was because Taichi had been focusing only on negatives. Which was funny enough considering he apparently wouldn't die even if he were killed. What was that supposed to mean? That he'd end up a digital zombie, like Osamu? Or maybe he'd be reborn in Primary Village in a Digi-Egg so big that Elecmon would have to scale it like a mountain with ropes and pulleys to roll it into a super-sized cradle.

He let out a laugh that quickly succumbed to a hacking cough. When it died he noticed that they weren't moving, and Yamato's eyes were on him.

"That sounds painful," Yamato said.

Behind him, Taichi rolled his eyes. "It's a just cough, Yamato."

"You sure? I thought you were gonna spit out your lungs or something."

"Nah. It just hurts, like some old lady with killer biceps is using my throat for a washboard."

Yamato snorted.

"Fine, as long as you're not dying."

"Even if you kill me, I won't die," Taichi muttered, his levity draining in an instant. Yamato gave Garurumon the signal to head on, but as they lumbered through the tunnel he looked back at Taichi with his brow furrowed. The shape of another "are you all right?" rounded his lips and all at once Taichi couldn't handle it.

"I saw Osamu," he blurted out.

Yamato frowned. "Osamu who?"

"Ichijouji Osamu. Ken's brother. You know."

"… You _saw_ Ken's brother?" he repeated, confused. "When? In our world? In a photo?"

"No, here, just now – not a photo," Taichi replied, annoyed even though he knew he shouldn't be. "He was in that room with me when the fire started. Well, it wasn't him at first, but whoever it was changed into Osamu."

"Changed into Osamu."

_"Yes,_ Yamato, this isn't a drill, you don't have to memorize everything I say by repeating it."

"I'm just trying to understand," Yamato said in a carefully measured tone. "Who changed into Osamu?"

"I don't know. Not someone I've ever seen before. But he looked like a teenager, maybe Daisuke's age, and then he looked completely different – younger – and his face changed and he was wearing glasses. It _was_ Osamu."

"So, what did 'Osamu' say?"

"Apparently I was early for my date with the Reaper."

"What?" Yamato sputtered. "The _Grim_ Reaper? … He tried to kill you?"

"No, as it turns out." Taichi actually chuckled. "He let me decide if I wanted to be killed or not. He said that after he killed me, chaos would end."

"Taichi." His friend groped for Taichi's wrist. "Taichi. Why didn't you tell me _before?_ Someone tried to –"

"Relax, Yamato, he told me I wouldn't die." More giggles. Now that he replayed it in his head, the whole scene was pretty silly. "So you don't have to worry. I'm immortal!"

"I don't even want to touch that," Yamato sniffed. "You have _no_ idea who this guy was? Could he have been some illusion of Vademon's?"

"That seems most likely to me," Garurumon rumbled.

Taichi didn't think it seemed likely at all, but everything in his head seemed blurred, like watercolors running together. He was hardly equipped to put up a decent defense against Yamato, ever the skeptic. _He_ knew the truth.

"It _was_ real," he said as something dawned on him. "That's right – because we were in the fire, but we weren't burning! The fire didn't touch us, either of us! But as soon as he disappeared, I could smell the smoke, feel the heat." Yamato's grip on his wrist tightened almost imperceptibly. "Get it? If I'd just been dreaming, or in some kind of illusion, then when I came out of it, I would have been burned all over, right? Because there _was_ an actual fire, you saw it too! But I wasn't. While I was talking to Osamu, I walked right in the fire, but I didn't get burned."

Garurumon paused while Yamato checked the map and directed him down a wide, damp-smelling tunnel. "You're probably feverish, going from the heat to the cold so quickly," Yamato muttered. "Look, Taichi, say you're right – what about the fact that Ichijouji Osamu is _dead?_ Like he's been for years? Or how about that he wasn't even a Chosen, and Ken himself said he didn't think –"

"Ken said he didn't think Osamu could use his digivice to go to Digiworld _on his own._ But Osamu came along with Ken at least a few times, right?" Taichi yanked his arm away. A sudden thought broke down the last of his reticence. "What if Osamu didn't die? What if he's been in Digiworld _the whole time?"_

"Taichi, think about what you're saying. Osamu was hit by a car. There was a body. The body was cremated, but Ken and his entire family saw it. Ken was there when the accident happened. Osamu is not in Digiworld." After a pause, he added, "And don't say a word about your 'theory' to Ken."

"As if I would," Taichi snapped back. But he felt restless. And pissed off at Yamato for being a jerk and grilling him like a cop, when all he wanted to do was make sense of the mess that was his memories between now and coming to Digiworld.

"What are you doing?" Yamato asked. Taichi slid off Garurumon's back. "Hey! Get back over here!"

"I think I'd rather walk," Taichi said, and turned to do just that.

"Have you completely lost it? Walk _where?_ I have the map! _Get back!"_

"Make me."

"Dammit!" Fuming, Yamato lowered himself to the ground. Garurumon pawed uncertainly behind him. Putting a hand on the stone wall, Taichi stumbled along down the tunnel, staring into the blank darkness and pretending he couldn't hear Yamato's gibbering.

"You're gonna get us both killed."

"No one's making you follow," Taichi hollered back. "In fact, no one made you come rescue me either. You just wouldn't know what to do without me to yell at when you're mad."

"That's completely unfair." Yamato sounded hurt.

It was, but Taichi's temper was too far gone. "Well, I can't think of any other reason why you hang around me, since you think I'm so stupid and insensitive. Are you just a masochist?"

"For someone who doesn't want to be thought of as stupid and insensitive, you've got a genius disguise."

"Screw you, Ishida."

"Get in line."

"Right," Garurumon heaved an exasperated sigh, "just keep tossing those verbal barbs, time'll pass quicker that way."

Taichi shut up, but plowed right along through the tunnel. The others quit trying to lure him back, but he knew they'd only indulge him until he took a wrong turn. Then Yamato would tackle him, fit him into the straitjacket he carried around for the express purpose of dealing with Taichi's tantrums, and throw him bodily over Garurumon's back like a sack of potatoes.

Inevitably he came to a fork in the road. Muddled though his mind was, he still knew better than to take off in a random direction. By this time he could admit to himself that he wasn't mad at Yamato. He was mad about this whole situation, mad at himself for putting them in it, mad because he had a hundred questions and not a single answer to any of them.

He said nothing while Yamato consulted the map. The dank cavern air made him shiver.

"Want to ride again?" Yamato asked.

"Sure," Taichi said dully. Garurumon knelt for them to climb on his back.

Taichi took hold of a clump of fur but paused before raising his leg. "… Do you guys see that light?"

Yamato and Garurumon turned. Yamato made a puzzled noise, but Garurumon suddenly slipped away and placed himself protectively before the two Chosen.

"It's those viral eggs," he growled low in his throat. "They've hatched."

Yamato sucked in his breath. Taichi moved closer to him until they were shoulder-to-shoulder.

"Viral eggs?" he repeated.

"They were everywhere in the tunnels when we first came in," Yamato explained in a low voice.

They watched as several dimly glowing, bulbous… _things _scaled the cavern walls and ceiling. More and more newly hatched larvae joined, skittering along with amazing speed, heading, thankfully, away from the Chosen. Taichi was just wondering if perhaps the larvae had no interest in them when one-by-one they began to pop. Blinding light flooded the tunnel. Taichi lowered his arm from his face just in time to see Garurumon plunge away, clearly on the attack.

"Where is he going?" Yamato exclaimed.

"I can't see anything," Taichi murmured back. He shook his head. "Let's –" Garurumon let out a pained howl. His body careened into another corner of the cave. Shouting, Yamato started to go to his partner, but Taichi grabbed his arms and forced him back.

"Let me go, he's hurt!"

"Don't be an idiot! You'll get killed! We have to wait and find out who we're fighting first –"

"The _hell_ I'm waiting!" Shaking him off, Yamato took three steps towards his partner when Taichi's ears caught a high-pitched whizzing sound.

"Get _down!"_ Without a second thought, he launched himself at Yamato and knocked him to the ground. Something grazed the side of his head and warm blood trickled down his cheek.

The viral larvae continued to amass. Taichi realized with a jolt that the energy they emitted was being absorbed by a massive figure closing in on them. Its body moved with a very familiar sway, accompanied by the hum of a motor.

"Vademon," Yamato hissed between heavy breaths.

Taichi shook his head. "No. He's digivolved."

"Correct," came a booming, mechanized voice. "I – Am – Ebemon. The Cyborg – Digimon. You are – Trespassers. I – Must – Exterminate."

_"I knew it_ – Vademon's a Dalek!" Taichi cried dramatically, and this time Yamato really did punch him.

"He's a Mega! We have to run!"

"Get on!" Garurumon appeared next to them with a blackened eye and drenched in sweat. Ebemon trained his gun on them.

"You – Will – Regret –"

* * *

** Mesa Forte  
18:05**

The great tiger roared. His voice rocked the mesa, laying the Digimon flat and their partners with them. Sora felt as if she were weighted down by a sheet of metal. She squeezed her eyes shut against a blast of sand.

As soon as it passed she was on her feet again, shouting orders. "Birdramon, Kabuterimon, Halsemon, surround him but keep a safe distance! Stick to long-range bombardments in the gaps between his armor! Togemon, aim for his underside!"

She'd fought as a Chosen long enough to have some idea of tactics. And she considered it a distinct advantage to have a retinue of flying Digimon capable of attacking from afar at their disposal. Pegasusmon and Nefertimon had been knocked out of the fight early, but Takeru and Hikari had already reported in to say their partners seemed more dazed than injured.

"We have to digivolve again," Mimi said at Sora's elbow, tearing her away from the fight in the skies.

Sora nodded grimly. "At this rate, even Ultimates won't be enough."

"As soon as Gatomon's up for it, I'll Jogress with Hikari-chan," Miyako said.

"Even if we power up, there's no way we'll win," Koushirou said as he wiped sand off his computer screen.

Mimi scowled. "Koushirou-kun, now is no time for you to become a pessimist. That's Jou-senpai's job."

"That isn't what I meant. He's one of the Sovereigns. Baihumon."

The girls stared at him in shock.

"Why in the world would a Sovereign be attacking us?" Miyako cried in disbelief.

"Koushirou, are you sure?" Sora asked.

Koushirou nodded. "Gennai familiarized me with all the Sovereigns pretty well. That is, I haven't met any of them, except Azulongmon, but I know what they're capable of. I have no idea why we're being attacked by one, but the probability of defeating him is astronomical."

"So all we can do is sit here and wait for him to come kill us?" White-faced, Miyako balled her hands into fists as Halsemon dodged another of Baihumon's claws.

Koushirou looked at the ground and didn't answer. Biting her lip, Sora scanned the skies, wishing she had Taichi's gift for strategy. Or at least his ability to make everyone _think_ he a strategy when he didn't. "Then we have to hold him off as long as possible," she said finally. "Maybe something will change. Maybe he'll change his mind about killing us."

"That seems _patently_ unlikely," said Koushirou.

She lost her cool for a moment. "Want to give up then? We're Chosen. We don't give up, because we're it, there _is_ no one else to take our place. You never know what the outcome's going to be until it happens, so everyone digivolve to Ultimate and… and let's just do our best."

"Daisuke and Ken-kun are on their way here," Mimi murmured, glancing up. "Imperialdramon might stand a chance against him." She darted off with her ponytail swinging. A moment later, Lillymon flew to join her companions. Birdramon and Kabuterimon followed suit, digivolving swiftly to Garudamon and MegaKabuterimon.

Miyako hung back. "Maybe we shouldn't attack him," she said. Sora raised an eyebrow. "I mean, what if he just doesn't realize we're the Chosen Children, and we're provoking him by fighting back?"

"What should we do, then? Take each hit until he figures out his mistake?" Sora shook her head. "We have to fight."

Garudamon let loose a barrage of fire on Baihumon. MegaKabuterimon joined her with a shuddering blast of electricity. Lillymon let loose her Flower Cannon. A cloud of charged smoke burst in their wake. While the three Ultimates swarmed, Halsemon swooped down to Miyako.

"A Jogress would be nice about now," he said, pointedly cocking his head.

Miyako patted his neck and shot a worried look in Hikari and Takeru's direction. "But Gatomon is hurt…"

"Go find out what's happening with them," Sora instructed her, and took off herself to catch up with Mimi.

She was surprised that Mimi had been so eager to join the fray. Usually Mimi held no interest whatsoever in battle. She was always ready to help in other ways – finding allies, gathering supplies, going on rescues, taking care of the injured – and, yes, she had a spitfire temper that launched an ambush now and then. But even Miyako, arguably their number one pacifist, had more fighting spirit than Tachikawa Mimi. And yet Mimi had not only back-talked Koushirou, she'd even situated herself right on the front line.

Sora leapt to the side as the remnants of one of Garudamon's attacks struck the ground. Rolling to her feet, she made her way to Mimi, standing directly beneath the raging battle. "You're enthusiastic about this," Sora shouted above the blasts and bellows.

Mimi glanced at her briefly and gave a half-smile. "I was always more of a cowgirl than a princess. But maybe New York gave me an edge." She gestured to the sky just as Lillymon took a tumble and MegaKabuterimon caught her between his claws.

"Lillymon!"

A second later, Lillymon peeked out from MegaKabuterimon's clutch and waved down at her partner.

The tension in Mimi's shoulders slackened. A bit. "I can't take much more of this. How did we do it in elementary school?"

"Kids are resilient. And prone to blind faith."

Silphymon streaked across the sky, rocketing towards Baihumon. The tiger gave his tail an agitated flick and brought down his paw, intending to knock Silphymon, only a tenth his size, out of the air. At the critical moment, Silphymon executed a butter-smooth dive, spiraling under Baihumon's torso with energy concentrating into a ball between his hands. The explosion that followed unleashed a shock wave that slammed the ground, sending Sora and Mimi skidding away from each other.

But Silphymon made a hit – smoke poured from the unprotected flesh of Baihumon's belly, and the Sovereign stopped moving.

_Hit him, hit him now while he's offline!_ Sora's thoughts came in frenzied bursts. Her heart thumped wildly – MegaKabuterimon and Lillymon didn't miss a beat, filling out Silphymon's offensive circle around Baihumon – and the shadow of Garudamon's wingspan fell over the Sovereign's back.

_Now – now, now, now!_

Garudamon's Wing Blade made impact with the juncture of Baihumon's shoulder blades. MegaKabuterimon, Lillymon, and Silphymon fired simultaneously. Crackling energy and dust mushroomed in the sky.

Sora raised a hand over her eyes. Baihumon's bulk, limp and smoldering, hovered at the center of the Digimon's circle. Someone let out a triumphant whoop in the distance. As Garudamon circled around to regroup with the others, Sora felt a tap on her shoulder.

It was Takeru. "Is Patamon okay?" Sora asked, inspecting the small bundle in the crook of Takeru's arm.

"He just needs to rest." Takeru helped her to her feet. "Come on, the battle's too heated for us, we'll get hurt if we stay in the open. Everyone's gathered behind that mound over there."

"I don't – if Garudamon is fighting then I –"

"Look, we're not running away, we're staying _out_ of the way. He's not defeated." Sora followed his gaze to the unmoving Sovereign. He certainly _looked_ defeated. Their partners were clearly running low on fuel, or they were reluctant to do any more damage to a Sovereign, because not a one of them seized the opening to deliver another blow. But they stayed in formation, and Lillymon took the precaution of binding him with a flower wreath.

"All right?" Koushirou looked up from his laptop when Sora and Takeru met them behind a boulder the size of a semi ("This is your idea of a 'mound'?").

"We're fine. You?"

"Skinned knees, nothing serious," Hikari said lightly.

"Koushirou," Sora nearly melted into a heap next to him. "Any word from –?"

"No."

"Does this guy have _any_ weaknesses?"

Koushirou met her eyes impassively.

Miyako and Mimi were crouched at the edge of the boulder, peeking out. Sora scrubbed at her forehead. They were together. They were okay. She could be grateful for that much. But their reprieve wouldn't last for long, and all they'd be left with was a Hail Mary for Imperialdramon to find them before Baihumon recovered. God, she wanted to strangle Taichi. Today was supposed to be Catch Up With Mimi Day. They were going to hit all the shops in Harajuku before moving on to Jimbocho. Sora wanted to buy Mimi her first Mos burger in two years. She wanted to hear about Mimi's break-up with Michael. Instead she was caught up in battle with what was likely enough the most powerful enemy they'd ever taken on, and she herself was half-leading, half-fumbling the offensive.

"I'm getting a migraine," Sora mumbled. Mimi was right. They were better at this seven years ago.

"Guys," Miyako breathed, waving one frantic hand behind her as she stared ahead. "Guys, _guys –!"_

Koushirou sighed. "Break time's over."

* * *

** Vademon's tunnels**

"Is that the exit?"

"Sure it is," Yamato snapped. "When do we ever get that lucky?"

Taichi rolled his eyes. His best friend must have run out of helpfulness juice. Suddenly he was such a drag. Not that Taichi blamed him. He'd act the same if he were forced to leave his partner behind.

Because that was all Taichi could think to do – let Garurumon distract Ebemon while he and Yamato searched for the way out. It was a decision he hadn't made lightly. In fact, it wasn't a decision he'd made at all.

_An outcropping suddenly gave way above them, and Garurumon stumbled. Taichi and Yamato hit the ground and threw their arms up, bracing for an impact that never came. Garurumon stood over them, blocking the rock fall with his own body._

_ "Nicely done," Taichi said._

_ Garurumon threw an anxious glance over his shoulder. "Go on without me."_

_ "What?"_

_ "No way, not a chance!" Yamato protested._

_ "Yes," Garurumon snarled. "I can't carry you and fight Ebemon."_

_ Yamato shook his head. "But you're fast. You're faster than him." He sat up abruptly, jabbing Taichi with a wayward elbow. "Just don't fight, just let's get out of here."_

_ "I can't."_

_ "He's far behind already –"_

_ "Yamato!" Taichi flinched. Though Garurumon's voice was sharp, there was a desperate edge to it – a note of panic. And his whole body showed signs of overexertion, from his wilting ears to his trembling hind legs. "I. Can't."_

_ And then Taichi understood. He couldn't. It took everything he had just to keep standing. He could no more carry them than he could tap dance. MetalGarurumon was a dream several hours' sleep and a few hearty meals away._

_ A muscle in Yamato's jaw twitched. He shook his head. "No. No."_

_ "It's the only way. Go. Bring Taichi back to Agumon."_

_ "I'm not leaving you!" he snapped. "I have never left you."_

_ Garurumon laid tired, tender eyes on him. "I know," he said softly. "That's why I'm leaving you."_

_ He sprang off the wall for momentum and took off the way the came, ignoring the echoes of the two boys' cries that followed him. Taichi tried to stop Yamato from running after him, but it was so dark that he found himself groping at thin air. He listened for Yamato's footsteps, the rasp of his breath, and took a flying leap._

_ "OOF! Let go! Taichi, so help me –!"_

_ "We're blind down here!" Taichi shouted in his face. "We'll never find him! He's already too far for us to catch up! Yamato. _Yamato."

_ Something changed in Yamato's breathing. "We can't. We can't." His voice hitched. Taichi raised his hand and felt for Yamato's face. Wet._

_ "… We'll make it worse for him by going back."_

_ Silence. At least Yamato stopped struggling. He gripped Taichi's arms and dipped his head, so close that their noses bumped._

_ "This is your fault."_

_ Taichi blinked. "Yeah," he agreed._

And so they'd set off. Taichi kept a firm grip on Yamato's wrist because he didn't trust him not to do something stupid, like pick a random tunnel from the maze and dart off in search of his partner. They'd had enough of stupid somethings today.

He avoided looking his friend in the eye and pulled him along.

By the light of Yamato's cell phone, Taichi traced the course they'd plotted out on the map, which had been a much simpler activity with Garurumon's night vision to guide them. The battery was dying now, too. And yet Taichi stubbornly plodded on, blocking out the various aches all over his body, Yamato's occasional wheeze, everything but the map and the voice in his head that told him this didn't have to be the end, Garurumon could survive. They just had to get out of the cave, find the others and attack Ebemon as a unit. Time, time would be killer, but miracles were their area. He had to try.

"They're nowhere near us," Yamato muttered. "We split up, trying to find you. They're trying to meet up but we were all scattered on different mountains. They won't make it in time."

Taichi started, realizing he'd been thinking aloud. "You're Mr. Sunshine, as usual." He plastered on his best cocky smirk, even though in the dark it was lost on Yamato. "There's no reason not to try."

"There's no reason to do something that _won't work!"_ Yamato pulled his wrist away and Taichi almost lost his balance. He opened his mouth, a protest on his lips, but instead met with a fist to his face and then the ground came hurtling towards him.

"Geez!" Taichi touched his cheek. "That freaking hurt!"

"Did it? Good! Maybe if I punch you hard enough, you'll think twice before dragging people down evil tunnels to rescue you from your own bull-headedness!" Yamato crouched over him and grabbed the collar of his shirt. "You never stopped thinking this is all a game, did you? Our great leader, always looking for short-cuts, always taking risks to get to the prize faster! But you have no direction. Just a lot of pent-up energy and a bunch of idiot friends who you think will follow you straight into the gutter!"

Taichi forced back the emotions bubbling in his chest. Anger battled with fear inside him – not fear of Yamato, whose rage was really grief and betrayal searching for something to control. Fear that he'd brought about the death of his best friend's partner, however inadvertently. Cold, gripping fear that in his self pity, his impatient and impulsive search for answers, he'd destroyed something much more vital. And Yamato hadn't hit a sour note yet with his list of Taichi's insecurities.

He sucked on his lip. The hands at his neck were shaking. He reached up with his own and grabbed the back of Yamato's head.

"I'm sorry, alright?" he choked out.

Yamato paused in his tirade and fell silent. He took a long, rattling breath. Then he slammed Taichi into the cavern floor one last time.

"Let's get out of here," he muttered, standing. Gingerly, Taichi raised himself to his elbows. Apparently not interested in waiting, Yamato pressed on down the tunnel, so Taichi clenched his jaw against vertigo and scrambled in the dark after him.

The quiet felt oppressive now that Yamato refused to talk to him. That was for the best, Taichi thought bleakly. If he had anything to say, it would probably involve another several lumps and bruises on Taichi's face. He could probably pass for a Muppet reasonably well by now. A badly-stitched, reject Muppet.

He wished he'd say _something._

"Signs," said Yamato.

Taichi froze mid-step and almost teetered backwards. His hand caught the wall just in time.

"Sorry… signs?"

Yamato nodded. With a jolt, Taichi realized he could now make out the outline of Yamato's nod. "Ahead of us. They lead to Vademon's domain."

Oh… _oh!_ "That kind of sign! I saw them too. They threatened me and called me names."

_"Lord of the Rings,"_ Yamato mumbled.

"What?"

"There was one with a quote from _Lord of the Rings,"_ he said, louder. They shared a look – nothing more than a look, but Taichi's heart rose, sure he'd seen a flicker of forgiveness.

It faded an instant later. "We're almost out." Yamato quickened his step. Sunshine seeped in through cracks in the stone ceiling. The muscles in their legs strained, but they were almost out.

By the time the mouth of the cave came into sight, Yamato was already well ahead of Taichi. He disappeared into the light and Taichi squeezed through the last of the narrow tunnel.

He found Yamato bending over on the windswept hillside – talking to someone? Taichi wiped the back of his hand across his forehead and hobbled to his side. As he approached, Yamato straightened and turned slowly. Then Taichi spotted the Digimon behind him.

It was Agumon.

They stared. They took the same halting step towards each other at the same time. Something held him back, though. Much as Taichi wanted to fly at his partner… he couldn't, not now, not with Yamato next to him.

A hand clapped his shoulder. The gesture was not altogether conciliatory, but Taichi met Yamato's eyes anyway. It was eerie, the way they could read each other sometimes.

Yamato shoved him. That was all the prodding he needed.

"Agumon!"

"Taichi!"

He wasn't forgiven, Taichi knew. Not until he set things right. He wouldn't forgive himself until he fixed the mess he'd caused. Agumon's claws grazed the back of his neck, his snout rubbing Taichi's cheek. There wasn't an inch of his body that didn't hurt but right now Taichi didn't care.

Eventually they untangled themselves. Taichi found Yamato gazing at the sky, where rainy gray began to give away to streaks of orange and pink. He punched his shoulder.

"Ow!" Yamato exclaimed, staggering back. "What the hell was that for?"

"Stop daydreaming," Taichi said. "We have work to do. Come on, back into the cave."

"You want to go _back?"_

Taichi already had one leg through the opening. "Why not? We have fresh ammunition now."

"But –"

"Yamato, have you forgotten? When Agumon and Gabumon are together, they can heal each other."

A shadow lifted from Yamato's brow.

"Duh, numbskull," said Taichi, and led the way underground.

As far as Taichi's plans went, this was one of his less developed. Go back, sniff around for Garurumon, beat the snot out of Ebemon, then go home and order out for pizza. On the other hand, at least he had something that resembled a plan. More often than not he just made stuff up, and when that fell through he made up more.

Agumon's eyes and nose gave them the edge they'd lost when Garurumon bolted. He scouted the caves at a rapid-fire pace, Taichi and Yamato on his tail. As the cavern entrance grew more distant, Yamato's hand found Taichi's arm.

At an intersection of several tunnels, Agumon came to an hasty stop and held up a paw. "Hear that?"

Taichi strained his ears to pick up on whatever it was had caught Agumon's attention. Moments later, listening no longer mattered.

Garurumon flew in first, paws fumbling over loose stones and stalagmites. Behind him, a hazy, greenish glow started to fill the cavern. Ebemon swayed towards them, ray gun cocked.

The light fell on Garurumon, hunched beneath a stone ledge. His eyes were closed and his chest heaved. Red crisscrossed the blue stripes in the fur on his back and hind legs. Yamato sucked in his breath.

"Warp digivolve, Agumon!"

The bright energy of the evolution snapped Ebemon's attention away from Garurumon. "That's my partner you abducted," came WarGreymon's imposing baritone as he jabbed one chrome-plated claw at Ebemon's cranium. "And this is my friend you hurt. I'm not the smartest Digimon, but I think it's safe to say you are in very real danger."

Ebemon hefted the ray gun to lock on WarGreymon. The threat seemed to bounce right off him.

"Must – Exterminate."

"You know, you should really knock that off," Taichi warned, wagging a finger. "Copyright infringement and all. He really looks more like an Ood than a Dalek, anyway," he added as an aside to Yamato, who stalwartly refused to so much as blink. WarGreymon just looked puzzled.

Energy concentrated at the barrel of the gun. "Annihilate. Exterminate."

WarGreymon grabbed Taichi and Yamato and flung them all towards Garurumon. Ebemon's laser demolished the rock wall that had been behind them. Stones and boulders fell from every angle. WarGreymon's shield bolted in place over his back and he bent over to protect the other three. Several tunnel entrances became clogged with rubble, including the one Taichi had emerged from.

"There goes our only way out," Yamato said with a sigh.

"Not quite." WarGreymon's eyes narrowed. "I don't like fighting in confined spaces, anyway."

"Wait." Taichi gaped at his partner. "If you're about to –"

But WarGreymon was long past waiting. He launched himself at Ebemon and caught him up in his arms. Ebemon's tentacles wriggled in a useless frenzy as WarGreymon started to spin them at a terrific speed.

They rocketed straight through the cavern roof. Daylight poured in amid swirling dust and debris. Squinting through the slapdash skylight, Taichi kept his sights trained on WarGreymon, who dropped Ebemon in midair and released his Terra Force.

"Well," Taichi let his arms fall. "So much for him."

Yamato had Garurumon's head cradled in his arms and was murmuring softly to him. Crouching beside him, Taichi scratched behind Garurumon's ear.

"How you doing, buddy?" he asked.

Garurumon cracked an eye open, but it clearly took a monumental effort. Taichi glanced at Yamato, whose face looked pale and drawn.

"Hang in there, pal. We'll fix you up soon."

"Taichi." Yamato peered at him blearily while he stroked Garurumon's fur. "I… said some things earlier…"

Taichi shook his head. "Yeah, well. Things are. You know."

The grin on his best friend's lips was small but genuine. Taichi felt pleasantly warm with relief. Knowing Ebemon had been no match for WarGreymon after all gave him a surge of pride. If Agumon hadn't been waiting for them outside the caves… but it was fruitless to think about that now.

WarGreymon descended through the hole he'd crashed through. For someone who'd just dispatched a fellow Mega, he seemed strangely unfazed.

"You're handsome as ever, my friend," WarGreymon said as he knelt in front of Garurumon.

Somehow the lupine Digimon found the energy to lay his eye on WarGreymon, even to flick his tail. "Missed you," he rasped through clenched teeth.

WarGreymon nuzzled his snout. Their connection, amplified by their bond as Jogress partners, opened for healing energy to flood through Garurumon. The cuts and scrapes on his body sealed, and he soon lifted himself upright. Yamato threw his arms around his partner's neck.

"You are so stubborn, you know that? I can't believe you tried to take him on by yourself." He buried his face in Garurumon's shaggy fur.

Garurumon looked rueful. "Even now I can't think what else I could have done. Your life is too important."

_"Your_ life is important. Besides, what am I supposed to do without you?"

"Yeah, he'd have to use me for his conscience, and you can imagine how that'd work out," Taichi chimed in.

They all laughed. "There's an easy fix for this." WarGreymon's eyes twinkled. "You and I just can't be separated, Garurumon, we're useless without each other."

"Speaking of which, how are you here, anyway? I thought you were with Centarumon." Garurumon cocked his head curiously.

"I was. Am." WarGreymon made an awkward attempt to scratch his head. "We parted a few hours ago. I was supposed to find you and Jogress."

Yamato's head swiveled towards Taichi, who couldn't help voicing his surprise. "Jogress? Why?" he asked with his brow creased.

His partner shrugged. "Centarumon said we'll find out after we do it. Gennai's orders."

Garurumon mused for a moment. "Then let's get to it."

"Are you sure you're up for it?" Yamato asked.

"I'm completely healed, Yamato. We're all worn out, but not beaten."

"I am not very happy with Centarumon," Taichi declared. "He left me in the middle of nowhere and that's how I got myself kidnapped by Vademon. But if Gennai's involved, well –" He glanced at Yamato for support. " – I guess I shouldn't be surprised this feels like bizarro world."

"As long as he gives us some answers when this is over," Yamato grumbled.

Garurumon set about changing into MetalGarurumon. Feeling that Omnimon would be a bit too much for the caves to handle, both Digimon flew their partners above ground before initiating the Jogress. Omnimon's helmet and breastplate gleamed in the late afternoon sun. Perched on either side of the horn on top of his head, Taichi and Yamato surveyed the modest, craggy landscape that concealed Vademon's labyrinth of horrors. Taichi wondered idly what would happen to Vademon's "collection" now that he would no longer be maintaining it.

"I think I know why Gennai wanted us to Jogress." Omnimon's voice reverberated in Taichi's ears. He peered at the horizon and Yamato asked, "Why?"

"Because of that." Omnimon pointed. Smoke funneled in the air a good way off. The clamor of battle rolled towards them on the wind.

"Garudamon for sure," Taichi stated, squinting. "And MegaKabuterimon."

"Who are they fighting?"

"Someone powerful," Omnimon replied gravely. "They can't so much as scratch him."

There was nothing else for it but to get closer and scope out the scene. Omnimon's mantle fluttered behind him like a crimson banner. Meanwhile Taichi tried to push back any thoughts that supposed they were already too late, that his mood swings when Yamato was trying to rescue him had snatched away valuable time. Yamato, hair disheveled, flecked with dirt and crusted blood, stretched his arm around Omnimon's horn and squeezed Taichi's shoulder. It hurt – like every other part of him – but right now it couldn't be more welcome.

"Hey," Yamato said softly. "Straight into the gutter. Okay?"

Taichi searched his face, but found nothing there but sincerity. Too much of it. "Gutter?" He wrinkled his nose. "Sounds nasty. There are rats and raccoons down there. Let's go somewhere nicer. Australia! Australia has sheep."

Yamato released a long sigh. "Why do you want to see sheep in Australia, Taichi?"

"Why not? Have you _seen_ sheep? They're all fluffy and cleaner than rats and I bet they don't have rabies."

"You've lost it."

"Your mama's a sheep."

"Tai –"

"Actually, since she's a lady, that makes her an _ewe!"_

"Alright. Alright!" Yamato threw his free arm in the air while biting back laughter. "You are a real piece of work. I'm trying to make amends, and you're acting five years old –"

_"Baaaaaa."_

"Shut. _UP."_

* * *

**Chapter Notes:**

1.] _Dalek (later, Ood):_ From _Doctor Who. _I'm still looking for an opportunity to reference the Face of Boe.

_Thanks for reading! Leave a review if you would so desire! Next chapter will be up asap! Baaaaaa. ~ Fizz_


	14. The Sword, the Poem, and the Guru

_A/N: I have one thing to say about this chapter: AP;EODJIFKGHEROPDSFKL;FMBHGTEOPWRJFBHTRGEOG_

_I hope it make more sense than that to you._

* * *

**Chapter Fourteen**

**The Sword, the Poem, and the Guru**

"'_Well, look at this! Appears we got here just in the nick of time. What d'ya suppose that makes us?'  
_'_Big damn heroes, sir!'"  
- Mal and Zoe, "Safe," _Firefly

** Mesa Forte**

Imperialdramon wasn't coming. Why wasn't he coming?

Miyako could see the lot of them – Daisuke, Ken, Jou, Iori, and, mysteriously enough, Centarumon – hovering less than a kilometer away. They were just… standing there.

"They're just _standing_ there!" she cried as another discharge from Lillymon's cannon kicked up great plumes of dust on the other side of their shelter. "Not fighting, not doing anything!"

"They've got injuries, remember? They told us." Hikari nudged her aside for a better view of the battlefield. "Maybe they can't help."

"We're fighting a _Sovereign._ Even Pegasusmon went back in when he came to. They'd better be really damn injured."

Hikari pursed her lips and drew her brow. "Miyako-san."

"I know. I didn't mean it… but they're just _standing _there!"

* * *

"We're just _standing _here!" Daisuke hollered. Spittle flew from his mouth to fleck Centarumon's helmet. "Like we're at the movies! Munching popcorn and Milk Duds! Commenting on the CGI! Which, by the way, is exceptional, I mean they really look like they're getting their asses kicked out there!"

"Calm – calm yourself, young man," stammered Centarumon, who had become rather fidgety. "Gennai's instructions –"

"To hell with Gennai!"

"Why does Gennai want us to stay out of it?" Ken broke in, deciding that Daisuke's method, while intimidating enough at a soccer match, lacked something in efficiency here. "Centarumon, the only way he could have given those instructions is if he knew we would end up fighting Baihumon. But how could he know?"

Centarumon hesitated, which was unnerving enough. Ken had never met a Digimon who routinely gave straight answers, but Centarumon's "You must trust Gennai" mantra brought "exasperating" to new, head-smashing heights.

"Gennai and Baihumon have an agreement." Centarumon's crossed arms gave way and dropped to his sides. "An agreement founded on the neutrality of Imperialdramon."

Iori started. "Just Imperialdramon? Then Armadillomon can fight?"

"… Yes. But I advise against it!" Too late. Digmon stood where Armadillomon had been and raced off with Iori towards the fray.

Daisuke watched them longingly. "I don't get why Gennai would bar us from fighting, unless he _wants_ us to lose," he pouted.

"You make it sound like Gennai agreed to Baihumon attacking us in the first place," Ken muttered, brooding.

* * *

"He's toying with us." Sora kept wandering too far for comfort. Koushirou took to following her in order to give her elbow a timely yank whenever she strayed too far for comfort. "He's a Sovereign. Why is he bothering with this? Couldn't he destroy us in one go?"

The truth was he could. The Chosen's power came from the Sovereigns to begin with. Koushirou suspected they could take it back on a whim, and he said as much to Sora.

She started to worry her lip. "Then why haven't they?"

"Well, we've always assumed they keep us around in case of new threats."

"If they're so powerful, why do they need us?"

"I've often wondered that myself. Gennai seems to think –"

A searing blast from above cut him off and carved a crater in their shelter. Brushing debris out of his hair, Koushirou scanned the sky for his partner, only to find that the fight was now on ground level. Baihumon's strategy was clear: all his opponents relied heavily on flight. By reducing battle space, he limited their attack range and protected his most vulnerable area, his underside. It was a dangerous move for anyone who wasn't fully confident that they had the upper hand. Lillymon's flower wreath hadn't affected him in the least. Sora hit the nail on the head: he was toying with them.

"Gennai seems to think it's politics," Koushirou went on. "Really messed up, chaotic politics in a society that's borderline lawless. Despite their title, the Sovereigns seem fairly content to avoid interfering with Digiworld except when they feel like it. We're sort of a last ditch effort to clean up the mess they won't touch."

"So, does that make them gods or government?"

"Sort of both, sort of neither."

With the others leading a frontal assault, Pegasusmon prepped his Equus Beam. As the glowing ray converged at his forehead, Baihumon's tail, weighted with an iron ring the size of a hubcap and surrounded with spikes, snapped out like a snake. In a flash, Pegasusmon spiraled off course. MegaKabuterimon took off to prevent him from smashing into the mountainside, but Baihumon was not having it. His jaws opened at MegaKabuterimon's shell; Koushirou couldn't tell exactly how the attack formed, but Garudamon dove to intercept it. She didn't cry out or so much as flinch. Instead she froze, gilded from her massive beak to her delicate tail feathers.

"My God –!" Sora's hand flew to her mouth. "What did he do!?"

Koushirou couldn't answer.

The Digimon seemed just as shocked. In a daze, MegaKabuterimon clutched Pegasusmon in his claw. All eyes fixed on the towering golden likeness of their friend while Silphymon and Lillymon flew around her in concerned circles. Baihumon paced several yards away, lips rippling in a vicious snarl as he watched the Chosen absorb the full horror of his special technique.

Then Digmon burst through the ground directly below him in a shower of baked earth and bedrock. His drill pierced the cleft of Baihumon's ribs. With a sudden thrill of hope, Koushirou and Sora stared at each other, then at the group of fellow Chosen huddled nearby. But Daisuke and Ken hadn't moved.

Iori came racing up the slope and appeared at Koushirou's elbow. "Imperialdramon can't fight," he managed, dragging an arm across his sweaty forehead.

"Why not?" Mimi cried, hair flying loose from her ponytail as she whirled around.

"Gennai's orders," said Iori. At their disbelieving looks he gave a confused shrug. "I don't understand it any more than you do, but Gennai says Imperialdramon has to stay out of the fight."

* * *

"If we can't fight," snapped Ken, at the end of his long fraying patience, "did Gennai suggest anything we _can_ do to win?"

"They won't last much longer at this rate," Jou put in, his first words since they'd arrived at the scene on the mesa.

They were all stunned by the sight of Garudamon fallen victim to the same metallovirus that had incapacitated Paildramon. Desperate as they were to send out Imperialdramon, they didn't have any counter for that attack.

"I have told you everything I know." Centarumon sounded miserable. "If it is any consolation, Gennai is more familiar with the Sovereigns than anyone in Digiworld. If his methods seem strange, I can only beg you to realize, no one else shares his understanding of how the Sovereigns work."

* * *

The golden coat encasing Garudamon held fast as the others swarmed around her immobilized legs. Desperation filled Sora and in a panic she latched onto the one method of fighting left in her arsenal: her digivice. Slipping out from behind their makeshift fortress, she dashed toward her partner. There wasn't much of a chance this would work – the Sovereigns, after all, were the power source behind everything the Chosen could do – but that didn't matter. She would just have to bet on the digivice's ability to connect her with Garudamon, soul to soul. Getting close enough, though, was enough of a problem on its own.

A shadow fell over her as she paused to get her bearings. At first she assumed it was just another thunder cloud, until Daisuke let out a triumphant bellow.

They were here – they were together – Taichi, Yamato – and Omnimon.

The glare of the sun on Omnimon's armor forced Sora to turn her face away. Meanwhile her heart raced – Imperialdramon couldn't help, but Omnimon had come.

And Baihumon's attention shifted accordingly.

Swinging his sword so that the blade tipped down, Omnimon plunged earthward into the heart of the battle. MegaKabuterimon and the others scattered, clearing a path straight to the Sovereign. If Omnimon couldn't put a dent in Baihumon's armor, nothing could.

At the last moment, with Omnimon's sword inches from his nose, Baihumon snapped open his behemoth's jaws and sank his teeth into the metal.

Both Digimon instantly froze. Omnimon's cape flapped amid a tide of dust at his feet. Sora could barely make out the specks that were Taichi and Yamato on Omnimon's helmet, but she could easily imagine that they'd gone as still as their partner. Baihumon had _bit_ Omnimon's sword. His teeth were stronger than metal. But just how much stronger? The blade had failed to break and Baihumon had not managed to wrench it away.

"This could last a while," said Koushirou.

Sora jumped. "Don't sneak up on me!"

"Sorry. You keep sneaking off on _me,_ though. I pay back in kind." She glared, but with no heat. "If either of them move, they risk losing the sword. They're so closely matched that neither of them can have more than a tenuous hold. This would be an ideal time for an ambush," he added with a significant glance at his partner.

MegaKabuterimon wasn't paying attention, too much astonished by the descent of Omnimon. The others were in similar states, but then Lillymon fluttered up to MegaKabuterimon's head and gave him a shove. Once the two Ultimates roused themselves, Silphymon and the Armor Digimon followed suit.

Rising into the air, they converged on Baihumon, who was forced to move. But he took Omnimon's word with him as he dodged to the left. Omnimon stumbled trying to keep his grip, and suddenly they were in the midst of a very high level game of tug of war. Digimon pelted Baihumon from every angle, but he only flicked them aside with his tail. Omnimon stretched out his free hand and seized a fistful of Baihumon's fur to try to shake him loose. In spite of this assault from all sides, Baihumon did not seem daunted. All his concentration was centered on holding onto Omnimon's sword. His body began to lengthen, his chest broadened, and to Sora's horror, Omnimon seemed to struggle not to lose his balance. Baihumon soon matched Omnimon's height and was otherwise clearly larger. With a deft leap, he flew over Omnimon's head, sword in tow, forcing Omnimon's arms up and over with him. Omnimon pivoted on the balls of his feet, just managing to keep from toppling over, but the sword quivered and finally escaped through his fingers.

_"Damn_ –! That's not what's supposed to happen!" Daisuke cried, making Sora jump again. At some point all of the Chosen, plus Centarumon, had amassed around Sora and Koushirou at Garudamon's feet.

"So send out Imperialdramon and help them!" Miyako shouted back.

"I would if I could, but _this_ guy –" gesturing rudely to Centarumon "– says we have to wait."

"Wait for how much longer?" Silphymon asked irritably. None of their partners had been the least bit effective against Baihumon; there was nothing for it but to hand the battle over to Omnimon. With one hand on her hip and her mouth downturned, Silphymon looked pissed. "Imperialdramon should have come the moment Omnimon appeared. Then we might have stood a fighting chance. Instead, we're all beat and Baihumon's got Omnimon's sword."

Although Silphymon was loud enough for everyone to hear, it was obvious she was addressing Centarumon. All heads swiveled in his direction. Centarumon pawed at the ground in agitation, clearly very put out by the Chosen's lack of faith. Sora tried to drum up some sympathy for him, but instead she was only angry. And growing more desperate. While it was a relief to know Taichi had been rescued, she would have preferred both him and Yamato down on the ground, instead of close enough to Baihumon's teeth to feel his steaming breath.

"Alright, children, alright. You've tormented Centarumon long enough."

The Chosen whirled around. There was Gennai, wrapped in a maroon shawl atop Unimon's back, a beatific smile on his pickled plum face. The wind whipped his gathered hair in circles like a weather vane.

Daisuke was the first to react. Not concerned with how Gennai came there or why, he got straight to the point.

"Gennai! Did you really tell Centarumon not to let Imperialdramon fight? Did you know Baihumon would attack us?"

"The answer to both is yes," Gennai said serenely. Although no one had suspected with any seriousness that Centarumon was lying, a round of gasps flew through the group. Everyone clamored to ask the same questions. But as Centarumon attempted in vain to push them back, and Unimon made snorts of disapproval through flared nostrils, Baihumon suddenly appeared on a stone outcropping behind them. He was far enough that they couldn't tell if he was injured, but Omnimon's sword remained clenched between his jaws.

"Gennai," his mental voice boomed. "I come to claim that which you promised me."

"You may have it," Gennai replied genially. "I am a man of my word."

"Promised?" Koushirou repeated at the same time Daisuke blurted out, "Have what?"

Omnimon dropped out of the sky next to Baihumon. His fist closed around the hilt of the sword. Baihumon's expression grew stormy, and it looked as though they would resume grappling for dominance when Gennai raised his hand.

"Leave him, Omnimon."

"What?" came twin shouts of protest from Omnimon's head. "Gennai, he has our sword!"

"I see that, thank you for taking an old man's frailties into consideration," Gennai said with a hint of exasperation. "The sword is bartered. In exchange for your lives – which he can very readily take – it seemed a small price to pay."

"You can't be serious!" Yamato cried.

Leaping from the outcropping to the hard-packed flat of the mesa, Baihumon regarded Gennai without blinking. "The power imbued in the Omega Sword should not be entrusted to Otherworlders. It belongs to this world – to _our_ kind."

Sora felt something clench in her chest at the way he called them as _Otherworlders –_the way he referred to his "kind." She and Koushirou met each other's eyes. In his she found a similar flicker of concern, but also a distinct lack of surprise.

Garudamon's still statue at once seemed incredibly far off.

"You gave us the power." Taichi's voice. Annoyed. Not impressed in the least by a haughty Sovereign's tantrum. Sora pictured him gripping the prow of Omnimon's helmet, free hand on his hip or balled into a fist, glowering defiantly down his nose.

"Reluctantly, and in dire circumstances," Baihumon countered with a snarl.

"Azulongmon disagrees," put in Gennai.

The glare he fixed on Gennai could have singed stone.

"And if I recall correctly, the other condition of our agreement required the exchange of power for power," Gennai went on, unflappable as ever. "Relinquish the D-Core, Baihumon, or return the Omega Sword. The choice is yours."

So that was Gennai's real motive. A Digi-core, like the one that enabled Paildramon to become Imperialdramon. They were legendary gems of compressed power controlled by the Sovereigns, and apparently, in Gennai's estimation, more valuable than the Omega Sword.

But not everyone agreed.

"Gennai!" This time it was Omnimon himself who protested. "Without the Sword, our power is halved!"

"Not to mention Imperialdramon's been able to use it before," said Ken, with Daisuke gripping his shoulders and nodding emphatically.

"Yeah, this is our trump card we're talking about!"

"You could have told us you made this 'agreement,'" added Yamato. Sora recognized the tell-tale hitch in his voice that signaled he was on the brink of a full-on outburst. "For example, I don't know, _before_ you made it!"

"Doing so would have jeopardized us all needlessly and resulted in the same outcome. There was no other way. You see now that your perceptions of this world are flawed." Gennai's head jerked minutely. Though his face was a twisted maze of unruly wrinkles and creases, Sora sensed his attention fix on Taichi as if she were watching them a foot apart. "The true threats to your welfare here are not the kind you can slay with a sword. I understand those threats, and I understand your flaws. Because of that, I took it upon myself to make this decision. If you trust me –" He broke off for an instant, and resumed with a soft voice, almost… regretful? "If you trust me, there may yet be a place in this world for you."

A chill ran down Sora's spine. There was no choice. Suddenly they had become "Otherworlders," when until now they'd only ever been "Chosen," and if she understood Gennai… if she heard him right…

Was it possible Digiworld wanted them out?

* * *

From Taichi's lofty post on Omnimon's helmet, the stalemate on the mesa looked like some bizarre tableau. Baihumon, Omega Sword locked in his mouth, tail swerving in hypnotic, snake-like motions, kept Gennai pinned under a smoldering glare. Gennai's shawl rippled fiercely in the breeze as he perched side-straddle on Unimon's back, giving Taichi the disturbing impression of a prune-faced, mustachioed Virgin Mary who laughed like _"kekeke."_ The other Chosen were bunched together, Daisuke in front, Jou in the rear with his partner concealed in his arms. Mimi and Miyako were wrapped around each other. The Digimon flapped wings and stretched claws in agitation. In the middle of it all stood Centarumon, looking between Baihumon and Gennai as if he wanted to intervene but had no idea how.

"If you trust me," Gennai had said. Taichi's mind whirled. When had they ever _not_ trusted him? Then again, he'd never raffled away their weapons before.

"This is insane." To his right, Yamato raked both hands through his hair and made an incredulous sound.

"It's definitely that," Taichi murmured.

"We were just with him a few hours ago. He told us where to find you. You'd think he'd have _mentioned_ some of this."

"Yeah, but Gennai's always been an enigma. We have no idea how he gets his special insights and prophecies, but I think he's always told us less than he knows. You remember. 'That is all you need to know for now,' he'd say. Like with the key cards from Myotismon's castle to our world. I've always thought he must have known which one was the extra. But he held back and made us figure it out."

"… You're not considering handing over the sword, are you?"

Color tinged Taichi's cheeks. "Well, everything turned out okay that time, right? And when we let Angemon and Angewomon shoot us with arrows, that was counterintuitive too."

"Not really, those were heavenly arrows." Yamato scowled. "I'd have been a little more reluctant if the prophecy had said they'd be throwing grenades at us. This really _is_ counterintuitive. Think about it. If it were really a matter of saving our lives, why did Gennai bar Imperialdramon from fighting?"

"You mean he must believe we could win if Imperialdramon fought with us," Taichi replied mildly. "I had the same thought, but Gennai's more farsighted than we are. He said himself that the real danger isn't the kind we can beat by fighting."

"We're being _manipulated,_ Taichi."

"I _know_ we are," Taichi sighed, hooking his arms over the horn of Omnimon's helmet.

"And you're okay with giving up our most powerful weapon to someone who's trying to kill us?"

"Not a bit, but you're forgetting that he has to hand over a D-core in return. A D-core is what gave us Imperialdramon in the first place."

Yamato closed his mouth at that, but still looked doubtful.

"Besides," Taichi went on, "do you really think Baihumon's gonna cheerfully give back the sword just because we say 'no deal?'"

And their chances of winning in such a situation were slim, whether Imperialdramon fought or not. Whatever power had ossified Garudamon, Taichi was willing to bet belonged to their new friend, the cantankerous Sovereign. Yamato looked to the side in discomfort, probably thinking along the same lines. Having the power to win wouldn't matter if they were turned into fossils before they got the chance to use it.

"I guess that's true," admitted Yamato.

"Omnimon, I'm making sense, aren't I?"

"… I don't like it, but…"

"What other choice do we have?" Taichi pressed, once again facing Yamato.

There was a hesitant moment during which Yamato scrutinized Taichi's face. Taichi wasn't at all sure what the troubled look in his eyes meant: if he doubted the wisdom of giving up the sword, or Taichi's sanity. A muscle in Yamato's jaw clenched. "Are you 100% sure about this?" he demanded hotly. But Taichi could tell he was wavering.

In truth, he wasn't sure. But something Gennai had said – beyond all the warnings about "true threats" – took him by surprise in that peculiar way answers to questions you didn't even know you had suddenly strike you. It had felt, when Gennai sought him out (and Taichi'd felt _that,_ as well, as if they'd been together in a private room, where voices were inconsequential to communication), as if he'd begun to understand something hugely important. Something that had been lurking in the back of his mind for a long while.

_You see now that your perceptions of this world are flawed,_ he'd said. Flawed. The obvious meaning was that they had lots of mistaken ideas about the Digital World, which was fair. Even Koushirou admitted to that much. Still, he couldn't help feeling like the word _"flawed"_ had been picked deliberately to pair with the word _"threats."_ Flaws and threats.

Threats caused by flaws?

Or… flaws becoming threats?

After all, what was a "flaw" to a digital being?

_Something to be burnt up._ A corruption, an inward collapse – a black hole.

* * *

He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted: "Let's see the D-Core!"

Baihumon's four golden eyes rolled on him. After a pause, he began to sweep his tail in several wide loops. The D-core materialized as a pulsing sphere of white light encircled by rings of encrypted data, spinning with a faint whir. The Chosen stared at it in awe.

"Will you honor the agreement?" Gennai asked Baihumon.

Baihumon's lips spread to bare his teeth right up the gums. "Will you honor _your_ end?" he retorted, as the dusty sunlight bounced off the smooth face of the Omega Sword.

"Yes," Taichi said, looking to Yamato for confirmation. Yamato's lips twitched, but he nodded.

Omnimon then knelt to the ground and they climbed off of him. "You can have the sword," Taichi yelled over the distance.

Daisuke made a strangled noise.

"Are you for real!?"

"If Baihumon hands over the D-core," said Yamato, smirking with dark promise. "It's not too late to double team with Imperialdramon."

"My deal is with Gennai," spat Baihumon, but his tail uncoiled with the D-core on its tip. The core propelled itself out in halting bobs like a jellyfish floating in the tide, coming to rest in Gennai's palms. Gennai reached into his sleeve and produced a small transparent box, inside which he trapped the core.

"Thank you. You are all very gracious." He looked honestly relieved. His brow cleared, and even his scraggly whiskers seemed to lift with his smile.

"Well, he's just pleasant as a peony, isn't he," scoffed Daisuke. Sora shushed him.

The D-core disposed of, Baihumon turned to leave. So much for all his "I'll huff and I'll puff and blow you to smithereens."

"Wait!" Koushirou pushed past the group and ran towards Gennai and Unimon. The Sovereign paused, glancing back. "Baihumon. What you said before – about not trusting 'Otherworlders' with too much power –"

"I've been against your having _any_ for a very long time," said Baihumon.

"I understand that. But can you really say that we've abused it? Haven't we used the power to save both our worlds? Defeating our enemies – Digiworld's rehabilitation – that couldn't have happened without all of us. Working together." Koushirou faltered a bit at the last, but he stood his ground. "Beyond that, we don't own it. I mean, the power doesn't belong to us. Our partners are our other halves. They're the ones who fight, who teach us how to get along in this world, who make us better. Because of them, we've evolved too," he finished softly.

There was a portentous pause. A grin crossed Taichi's face. _Some nerve that guy has._

Even Baihumon seemed – well, maybe not impressed, but certainly unnerved. He swung his great tiger's head to the side. "You speak of abuse?" The rumble in his throat sharpened into a bark. "You have enslaved us with black towers. You have trespassed into forbidden worlds. Your greed for power has forced Digimon to degenerate into corruptions."

Taichi felt as if he'd been stabbed. The nightmare of SkullGreymon towered over him, all shuddering bones and toxic cavities.

"Your reluctance to perform your duties killed a noble leader of Digimon. You have even lost those partners you claim to treasure, who evolved only to die protecting you. Wherever the children went, destruction and chaos followed. And above all, it was the unreliability of your kind that caused all this in the first place. You talk of joint efforts, but there would have been no need – it's more like we gave you power even though you were unworthy, and in saving yourselves you happened to also save us."

Then he pushed back with his haunches and sprang into the sky.

* * *

A stupor fell over them like a blanket.

SkullGreymon was far from the only specter haunting the mesa in the suffocating stillness that followed Baihumon's departure. No one said a word. Mimi sank slowly into a patch of purple asters.

"Leomon," she breathed, and covered her mouth. "He meant Leomon."

"He _meant_ to draw out all our bad memories, so we'd agree with him that we totally suck as Chosen," fumed Daisuke. "Well, don't let him. So we've had a few screw ups. Like Koushirou was saying, we've had a lot of victories too. If you don't fail every now and then, it's a sign you're playing it safe."

"Wow, Daisuke-kun, that's too wise to be your own words," teased Takeru as the shadow lifted from his eyes. He'd gone pale during Baihumon's tirade, but seemed very ready to bounce back. "Is that Gandhi or something?"

"Woody Allen," Daisuke answered proudly. Takeru sighed.

Though there was a lot of truth in what Daisuke said, Mimi was unaffected. Forcing his tired body to move, Taichi made his way over to her and bent in a squat.

"Leomon, of all people, made his own choices," he said.

She shook her head. "No, he's right, though. I didn't want to fight anymore. I put all of us at risk and…"

"That's _not_ how it happened."

Jou was coming over. He looked awful. His hair was a nest of tangles and errant twigs. Someone's blood stained the hem of his shirt. But it was a mixture of the pathetic bundle in his arms and the gray, care-worn expression on his face that struck Taichi the most.

Mimi glanced at him, eyes full of tears.

"You were tired of losing your friends," Jou said. "You didn't want to fight. So far I don't see how you did anything wrong."

Her lips tightened. "But –"

"SaberLeomon died protecting you when you tried to stop others from getting hurt. You weren't just refusing to fight, pretending our problems were no concern of yours. You were trying to _save_ us. Granted, when you're attacked by self-absorbed Elvis impersonator monkeys, it's best to have something more useful than a bobby pin on hand. But your heart was in the right place, and SaberLeomon thought so too. That's why he protected you. And I… you'd been driving me crazy that day but then you… and I thought you were really brave…"

By now his entire face was beet red. For a moment he looked like he would say something else, but instead he did a quick about-face and tore to the back of the group. Mimi stared after him with amazement.

Then Lillymon descended and reverted to Palmon. Embracing her partner, she leaned into Mimi's shoulder. "What Jou said. Of course at the time I was really scared for you, but afterward I kept thinking how cool you were."

"Definitely cool," Taichi echoed affectionately. The danger gone, the Digimon reverted to their default stages. The Chosen roused their spirits as their partners joined them.

Agumon bumped Taichi's elbow with his nose, emerald eyes sparkling.

"What," Taichi said, "you're not miffed at me for giving away your sword?"

"I'm super _'miffed.'"_ Agumon folded his arms and pointed his nose at the sky. "You owe me and Gabumon a lifetime's supply of double-stuffed Oreos."

"Well, at least you're stricter about apologies than Koushirou is."

Koushirou shot him an odd look.

Garudamon alone remained unchanged, her head thrown back as it had been when Baihumon's attack hit.

"How long before the virus wears off?" asked Sora after Daisuke and Ken related what had happened with Imperialdramon.

"Leave Garudamon to me," said Gennai. "The power of the Digi-core can purge the virus. It's the least I can do after you showed me such faith."

He opened the box containing the D-core. Pinching his thumb and forefinger together, he waved his hand back and forth in front of the core, as if drawing thread. Garudamon's body began to shimmer. Little by little, color returned to Garudamon's feathers, and her wings jerked. In a burst of wind and bright light, she vanished and reappeared in the form of a pink bulb sprouting blue petals.

"Yokomon!" Sora exclaimed, and rushed to scoop her up.

Happy for them, Taichi was about to stand up, but immediately toppled in the other direction when someone crashed into his back.

"Oniichan! I was so worried about you!" cried Hikari, hugging his waist.

"Nice to see you too," he coughed through a mouthful of dirt.

"I can't believe you left me such a wimpy note. I _can't believe_ you came here on your own."

"Trust me, it's one life choice I'm questioning myself."

"Oh, and," she let go and knelt behind him as he brushed himself off, "we found your shoe. What ever happened to the other one?"

"Ah, I kinda… threw it in a pond."

She stared at him. "Well, now I wish I hadn't carried this one around all day."

"Taichi."

Unimon, bearing Gennai, stood over them. Gennai's expression was lost in the sunset. "Thank you," he said with a warmth that almost made Taichi blush. He searched for anywhere else to rest his eyes and settled on Unimon's foreleg.

"Don't get me wrong. I came here for answers, and I'm getting them," he rejoined, making a valiant attempt to sound like a team leader, though feeling silly about his impulsive behavior up till now. It was hard to meet Gennai as an adult when all he'd done lately was screw up.

"Yes, it is high time the truth came out," Gennai said heavily. Now Taichi lifted his eyes. The troubled old man looked just that – old and troubled. "We have injuries to tend to as well. Unfortunately, we're quite naked out here. Please do me the favor of holding off on your questions until we return to my house."

Taichi gave a silent nod. Meanwhile his insides squirmed. Recalling the stir he'd felt when Gennai locked onto him to bargain over the sword, he found himself averting his gaze to the ground again.

"Guys, let's pack it up." Gatomon, taking the lead, sprang from Chosen to Chosen to share Gennai's instructions. "Time to move out."

One last surprise awaited them before they quit the mountains. As Gennai led them toward a trail he claimed was a short cut, bordered on one side by the sloping stone and dropping off on the other into a cliff overhanging a forest, their progress was halted by a volley of crumbling rock. Taichi looked to the site of the rockslide's origin, and spotted a strange creature watching them from the precipice. Small and plump, frazzled strands of silvery hair flying loose from her bun, the Digimon peered at them with her wide set frog eyes from behind a boulder. The grooves and dents in her face made a perfect mirror of the crag. Taichi didn't recognize her, but bouncing in gleeful circles nearby was that infuriating little Gonmon.

"Hello, uglies," cackled the first Digimon as she bowed over her crooked staff.

"Babamon and Gonmon!" Daisuke yelled.

"It's that Digimon who stole the vial from Vademon," Yamato hissed right after, darting over to Taichi and gripping his shoulder.

Taichi furrowed his brow and glanced at him, but Babamon chose that moment to hop off the mountainside and into their path.

"I see you got your grubby hands on a Digi-core!" A dozen bangles and rings jingled as she moved. "Well, I congratulate you, I congratulate you. So many years spent longing in your ivory tower and it's finally fallen into your lap."

The Chosen, realizing Babamon only meant to address Gennai, parted in confusion as Unimon clopped forth. "I can't say that's entirely accurate, Babamon," Gennai said, tone deliberately light. "Many years' worth of mediation and compromise went into making the core 'fall into my lap,' as you put it."

"Be that as it may, do accept my congratulations. They are _most_ heartfelt." She clasped her knobby hands over her chest. "Now it is your turn to congratulate me. Behold, the fruit of many years' toil!"

So saying, she pulled something out of her cloak and held it to the light. A slender cylinder of some bubbling liquid gleamed between her fingers. Her broad mouth curved into a sneer as Gennai sat up straight. Snorting in fury, Unimon stamped the earth.

"Of all Digimon I can't abide…" he muttered.

"She's always been a most persistent thief," Centarumon said with a sigh.

Gennai stretched out an arm. "Peace… Indeed, Babamon, you have come across a real treasure." He cocked his head. "But do you know how to use it?"

"Insolent." Babamon glowered. Bringing the vial closer, she gazed at it cross-eyed. "Whatever I need to know, I'll find out."

"Of course I have no doubt in your capacity to learn whatever you wish, my friend. There are easier roads, though."

"And now you take me for a fool."

"Not at all. Listen to me. You cannot use that. Learn all there is to know and you will not be able to use that for your purposes. But there is another way. I will give you the Digi-core. Pass the code to me, and the D-core is yours."

Sora peeked between Taichi's and Yamato's shoulders while the others chattered incredulously among themselves. "What's in the vial?" she whispered, clutching Yokomon.

"Taichi's code," Yamato answered, never moving his eyes from the scene in front of them.

"His what?"

"Yeah, my what?" echoed Taichi.

"I don't really know," Yamato admitted. "Couldn't wring that much information out of Vademon. But he said it was data, a code he took from you. I think he used the word 'blueprint.'" He shook his head ruefully.

"Vademon took something from you?" Sora's brow flew up in alarm.

Taichi gave a helpless shrug. He didn't remember.

Babamon's eyes narrowed into slivers. "You do think I'm a fool. Well, you're a selfish little ugly, Gennai, and the big difference between you and me is I know it."

"You're making a mistake –"

"It's fun to watch you run around as if your head's rolled off," she taunted him, as Gonmon leapt on her shoulder. "If I came across your head, I'd hollow it out and use it as a flower pot. I'd plant some nice hyacinths." She pocketed the vial. "You want this code that badly? Then I'll make you work for it."

She began to wave the staff in the air above her.

"Watch out, she's gonna teleport!" Daisuke cried. "DemiVeemon –!"

DemiVeemon evolved mid-jump, vaulting toward Babamon.

_"V-headbutt!"_

"Bye, uglies!" crowed Gonmon, as in a burst of garish purple smoke he and Babamon disappeared. Veemon skidded down the path and landed gracelessly on his tail.

The Chosen crowded around Gennai, awaiting his reaction. Each felt the urge to be concerned, but no one knew exactly why. So they looked for guidance to the one person who understood what was going on.

But Gennai's face was impassive as a winter sky.

* * *

** Gennai's residence  
20:10**

The kettle whistled shortly after the Chosen made themselves comfortable in Gennai's guest room, but at first no one seemed inclined to get up and attend to it. Finally Sora, who up until then had been splayed on her back staring vacantly at the overhanging lanterns, lifted herself with her elbows and went to the kitchen. Sitting cross-legged by the sliding doors, Takeru acknowledged her with a nod as she passed, careful not to jostle Patamon who was sleeping on his head. No one else so much as moved.

The journey back to Gennai's house had been made in such a haze of exhaustion that Takeru doubted anyone remembered much of it beyond the way their legs cramped up with every step. Centarumon and Unimon said their farewells at the brink of the sea fortress. As soon as the ocean walls closed behind them, Gennai whisked Jou and Gomamon into a private room, and took Taichi and Yamato with him. The latter quickly emerged in a fuming storm and took up leaning on the opposite door to where Takeru sat, looking out into the Japanese garden from the veranda. He refused to say a word about what went on in the other room. Since then he'd barely moved, except for his fingers, which fiddled with an unlit cigarette in agitation. Gabumon stood sentry-like by his side.

Yamato liked gardens. He liked the understated, uncomplicated beauty of a few well placed rocks and a bamboo fountain in a pond. Because his brother's own mind was such a loud place, Takeru mused. He wondered how Yamato reconciled his love for silence with his job as a rock musician.

"Who wants tea?" asked Sora, reentering with a tray holding the kettle and several tea cups. She seemed disconcerted when no one replied, but then she put the tray on a table and tasked herself with filling every last cup.

"I'll help," Hikari said, seeming to rouse from a dream. She unfolded her legs and brought a tea cup over to Daisuke.

"None for me," Daisuke mumbled.

"Just take it," Hikari sighed, a slight pucker in one corner of her lips. "It's already poured. You don't have to drink it, just put it next to you or something."

"I don't want it."

"Look, Daisuke-kun, right now – it's just to have something to do –"

"I said _I don't want it!"_

"For heaven's sake, Daisuke, just take the damn cup!" shrilled Miyako. A tense silence followed her outburst, the kind that would shatter rather than split if someone broke it at the wrong moment. Therefore it lasted for a while.

Takeru accepted a cup of tea from Hikari and met her eyes to invite her to sit next to him. It was one thing for Daisuke to act five years old and whine about not wanting tea. It was quite another for someone to get on his case about it. So what if he didn't want tea? Now Daisuke was in a sulk, Miyako was pouting and Sora's face was deep scarlet as she arranged and rearranged the items on the tea tray.

Well, this was fine. They could all sip unwanted tea and be pointlessly pissed off at each other for as long as it took Gennai and the others to come back and let them in on all the secrecy. Plus they were tired. It might not hurt to nap until there was some news. Most of their partners had done so right from the start.

The light pitter-pat of rain on wood made him turn back to the veranda.

"It _rains_ here?" exclaimed Daisuke, voicing everyone's surprise.

Mimi shrugged. "Rain's not exactly unheard of in Digiworld."

"Yeah, but aren't we technically underwater right now? I mean, the fish are _right there."_

"The rain is for soundproofing," came Gennai's voice.

Everyone jumped. Someone (Sora) hissed, "Geez!" in a frayed voice. The Digimon stirred. Several someones repeated "Soundproofing?" until it sprang around the room like a tennis ball.

Hands clasped behind his back, Gennai's hunched figure peered at them from the doorway. Behind him was Taichi, face conspicuously blank and edged with tiredness.

"How's Gomamon?" Ken asked.

"He will recover," Gennai assured them. "Jou will stay with him for now. I doubt there is any lasting damage to his adult evolution. What was broken was not a physical horn the way you children perceive it, but a string of data coded to appear like a horn. It should regenerate."

He let them digest that for a moment before moving on. "As for the soundproofing, it's costly, but if we're going to discuss anything involving the Sovereigns it is absolutely imperative."

At the word "Sovereigns," Koushirou straightened and looked at Taichi. From where Takeru sat, Taichi was mostly obscured by the door, but he could tell from the gleam in Koushirou's eyes that they were having some kind of wordless conversation. Whatever reply Taichi sent wasn't enough to satisfy Koushirou, but still he sank back. Takeru imagined their exchange – _"Not now" – "Okay, but you're telling me later" – "As if I could get out of it."_

"Ah, I see there's tea. Good, good." Sora passed cups to Gennai and Taichi _("Thanks" – "Are you alright?" – "I hate green tea" – "Since when?" – "Since today." – "… Tell me if you want more")._ "Now, where to begin?"

"How 'bout with why you gave away our best weapon without telling us?" snarled Yamato.

Taichi frowned. "He's already explained that."

"Not well enough for me."

Yamato's anger at Gennai was understandable, Takeru thought, but also really irritating.

"I want to know about the kids with the Spores," he said.

"Me too," said Iori.

"Yeah, me too," echoed Daisuke, "but maybe that's not the most important thing right _now."_

"That what's the most important thing?" scowled Takeru.

"Well, it's this whole business with the Sovereigns, right? Why their business is affecting our business and why they're all up in our… business."

"I want to know why we weren't supposed to come to Digiworld before now," put in Miyako.

"What's really happening to my brother?" asked Hikari.

"Koushirou," came Taichi's voice, swelling over the rest, "what do you think?"

Each of the Chosen swiveled to face the brain.

"… Um…" stammered Koushirou, who hated to be put on the spot, "… well, it always makes sense to hear a story from the beginning… though in this case I'm not sure where that is exactly."

"You're right as usual, my friend." Gennai took a noisy slurp of his tea. "You're right firstly for understanding the situation as a story. It is very much that (though take care, not an ounce of it is fiction). You don't know where the beginning is, but you know it must exist. Then that's what we will do. _Guh."_

So saying _"guh,"_ Gennai levered himself off the floor and began to shuffle back out the way he came. He turned the corner and disappeared. The Chosen stared after him, mouths hanging open. After a moment his head popped back into the room.

"Well?"

Sora blinked slowly. "Do… _what,_ Gennai?"

"Why, start at the beginning," he said, and left again.

In a flurry of slippery socks, they went careening after him.

* * *

From the outside, Gennai's house didn't look like much more than a few rooms and a garden, but adding to its mystique along with the pink sea fortress, they discovered, was an intricate underground maze, which doubled as a portal to other parts of the Digital World. The maze itself looked like the heart of old Kyoto, with narrow cobbled streets and lattice windows shrouding door upon door leading to who-knows-where. The sky down here (at least Takeru assumed they were "down") was perpetually starlit. Koushirou paused from time to time to inspect an etching on a wall. The engravings were Digicode for sure, but Koushirou mumbled something about "different formula" and couldn't interpret them.

Fortunately for their feet, they didn't have to walk far. Gennai led them to a small but open hexagonal clearing where light glanced off the polished stone path like so many shards of diamond. Only one spot was completely in shade, a far corner near which a giant willow bowed away from the moon like a drunkard who, having hobbled tipsily along, with his last steps finally slumped into the wall. In that dour corner a wide set of oak doors with medieval-looking iron rings rose like an ominous angel.

"The story begins here," said Gennai, placing a thin, gnarled hand on one of the rings. Takeru barely had time to doubt to whether he could possibly open those doors before they groaned open on their own. A red flicker bent across the walls inside.

"Be careful… There's no place I'd prefer the lot of you to be than here."

The floor and walls inside were stone and mortar and utterly bare. As they trouped down the narrow hall, the temperature rose and the wavering red light grew more and more wild. Takeru tugged at his collar, which was quickly becoming too tight. Around him, the others also started adjusting clothes or fanning themselves. Yamato ripped off his jacket and Takeru caught Gabumon mumbling, "You're lucky you can take _yours_ off" _("I'm pretty sure yours comes off too" – "Shh! That's personal!")._

Patamon, fluttering down from Takeru's head, beat his wings a few times to kick up a breeze. Takeru scratched him between his ears.

"It's kind of scary in here, isn't it?" Patamon whispered as Takeru hugged him to his chest. "Kind of reminds me of that Dark Whirlpool."

"How? It was cold there, not to mention underwater."

"It's the atmosphere," Patamon said, which Takeru thought was uncharacteristically cryptic of him. But he let it go and tried to ignore that niggling tickle in his mind that there _was_ a sense of déjà vu associated with this place.

"Takeru, look."

The Chosen who had taken the lead with Gennai – Taichi, Sora, Koushirou and Daisuke – had come to a stop. They stood shoulder to shoulder, gazing into what looked like a shimmering orange curtain. The others quickly filled the gaps between them, and now lined up not three meters from the curtain, Takeru saw that is wasn't a curtain at all, but a cascading stream of fire shooting from a crevice in the stone that had no beginning or end to be seen.

Had they entered a volcano? The heat from the burning geyser seared their skin. Patamon looked torn between burying further into the crook of Takeru's arm and flying off to avoid the warmth of his body.

"This is the Wall of Fire," Gennai announced, throwing his voice over the whoosh of flames.

"Clever name," Daisuke quipped.

Gennai chuckled. "Perhaps not an altogether appropriate one," he mused. "The Barrier of Fire, perhaps – the _Living_ Barrier. Yes, the Wall is very much alive. Not all living data takes on the form of a Digimon. I'm proof of that."

_Living data._ Takeru turned the phrase over in his mind. Of course he knew Patamon was data, and Patamon was alive, and even he, Takeru, had somehow been adapted into data himself in order to come here … but somehow he'd never thought to put it in those words.

"A barrier," Taichi repeated. "What's it keeping out?"

"Or keeping in?" added Sora.

"Both. Beyond this wall is a place of abominations. Corrupted data – unsuccessful evolutions, malware infections, foreign bodies – are all brought into that void. The wall in turn keeps out as much of those as it can, and the Digital World expels the rest."

_Apocalymon,_ Takeru thought, recalling the sad, tortured creature who had put them to their final test seven years ago, and how bittersweet his defeat had been. It would have been much worse if Apocalymon hadn't completely given himself over to darkness.

"Virus Digimon aren't corruptions?" Koushirou asked.

"Digimon whose natural state is called 'virus' are different from a computer virus," Gennai clarified, "but it's true that many of your enemies were infected themselves, changing their sequence of evolutions. That is why Primary village exists: the data can be purged and refreshed, and the Digimon have another chance to grow up virus free. Most Digimon, once infected, will expunge themselves when evolving. Etemon was one such example: he could not maintain the infection of the Dark Network, and it took him a long time to reach the Mega level where he could return to our world. But sometimes they find a way to manipulate the virus and manage to reach high levels of evolution; hence Myotismon and Piedmon. You'll recall that Apocalymon's negative energy is what gave power to Piedmon and the others. Even Devimon might have reached the next stage had he not been purged by Angemon.

"You've witnessed the resilience of these types. After you defeated Myotismon, he rejuvenated himself not once, but twice. Data never really dies. It only goes somewhere else, and it goes here."

He gestured to the Wall with a broad sweep of his arm. The Chosen stood silently, awed. Then Ken said: "But it doesn't keep out _all_ corruptions."

"No, indeed." Gennai's shoulders fell. "In fact, it's become more erratic as of late. There is the answer to your question, Miyako," he said, and she twitched in surprise at being addressed. "I didn't want you to come here until I understood how unstable the Wall had become. Your digivices can only protect you so much. I don't need to tell you what could possibly happen, you have an example among yourselves."

He meant Taichi. They all tried to peek at him without seeming like they were peeking, but Taichi just stared straight ahead, the flames leaping in his dark eyes giving him an incongruous sinister look.

"What did you discover?" Koushirou asked, drawing their attention over to him.

Gennai shook his head. "I still do not know the degree to which the Wall is faltering. It holds, for the time being, but a collapse is inevitable. This can only mean that the source the Wall draws power from has reached its limit. I am hoping the Digi-core we traded for the Omega Sword will supplement it until a new power source can be found."

"If a new source is found, will Oniichan be okay?" Hikari asked, jumping forward as if on a spring. "You said this happened because the Wall's been weakened, right? So if we fix it, Oniichan will be fine."

"His data has already been warped, and that cannot be undone," Gennai said. Hikari's face fell. "Do not lose hope. It may be that in fixing the Wall, we come across a method to restore Taichi as well."

It wasn't a promise, but it was something. Taichi made no reaction, but Yamato folded his arms behind his head and backed away from the line to lean against the stone, as if he suddenly felt the need for space. Takeru wondered what exactly they had discussed in that other room.

"I still don't see how this is a story," complained Daisuke, and Gennai laughed again while the kids around him smacked and shook his shoulders.

"Yes, I did say I would start at the beginning, didn't I?" Gennai fell silent as he deliberated. "Well, I brought you here because everything begins with the Wall. Before the Wall, Digiworld existed, and so did relations between humans and Digimon. But an influx of corruptions and viruses – the result of errors and malicious data coming from your world – made the Wall necessary. No one knows who ordered construction. And, knowing its weakness, anticipating its eventual collapse, Digiworld selected you all to fill the role of a sort of royal guard. You're the elite of the elite." He grinned crookedly. "And it seems the Digital World will always yearn for contact with yours. Come with me."

He started heading back the way they came. The Chosen shared uncertain glances and followed. They filed out the huge double doors and collected under the willow.

The doors to the Wall of Fire closed behind them like the lid of a sarcophagus.

"You may have noticed that the Sovereigns are not completely of the same mind as I am regarding you. When the Wall was built, I begged them not to cut off ties with your world. I managed to convince them, on the grounds that they would have full authority over whatever power the guards would use. They each made two Crests."

He snapped his fingers and a globe-shaped lantern descended from nowhere to float above their heads. A velvety glow fell over the lonely corner, suffusing the inscriptions on the door and revealing a web of Digicode. The curves and glyphs merged into a complete sigil, inside which were four familiar figures.

It was the mythos of Kyoto, the four guardians of the interdimensional gate: in other words, the Sovereigns.

"Azulongmon of the East has always been the most willing to bond with humans," Gennai said. The light glittered on the embossed lines forming the serpentine length of the friendliest Sovereign. "It was he who came up with the idea of the Crests, and made Light and Hope himself. Zhuqiaomon, the Phoenix of the South, is as suspicious of you as Baihumon, but rather more rational and calculating. His Crests are Courage and Love. Ebonwumon of the North, who created the Crests of Knowledge and Sincerity, is too lazy to have much of an opinion. He might help you, or he might prefer to take a nap. And, of course, Baihumon of the West. He does not like you. He never has. He is violent and unpredictable, but there must be something good in him, because he created the Crests of Friendship and Reliability." Gennai paused to let that sink in. "Indeed, there are other symbols that I do not know from where they came. The Crest of Kindness, for one."

Beside Takeru, Ken shifted uncomfortably. His eyes fell to the ground.

"The existence of such powers is enough to attest to the Sovereign's limits," Gennai chuckled. "These powers emerged without their knowledge, without their consent, and for the most part can only be used by you children. I would not be surprised if there's a force even more whimsical than the Sovereigns pulling the strings from the sky. So the Sovereigns put enough faith in you to grant you the Crests, and now that the Wall has begun to collapse, we need your help to battle the corruptions more than ever. Which means _you_, also, are in danger. While I examined the Wall, I couldn't have you putting yourselves at risk, but that meant your partners were unable to defend themselves. So I gathered them in my house, which is as well defended as any place in Digiworld can be. But, realizing my design, your enemy decided to move against you in your world."

_Finally._ Finally they were getting to the Spore Children. Takeru balanced on the balls of his feet and tried not to look like he were waiting on tenterhooks.

Iori was frowning. "So, you're saying the Spore Children are our enemy?"

"No, not precisely." Gennai shook his head. "But somehow the Spores have been reactivated. I don't know the extent to which those poor children understand that they are agents of darkness, but they will target you. It is not safe for you to come to Digiworld. I will continue guarding your partners, but you must be vigilant on the other side."

Takeru let himself slouch. That was all they got? How disappointing. Though he wasn't sure what he'd expected to hear. That it was all a mix up with the Spore Children, that they just had to talk with them and everything would smooth over...

Sora tentatively raised her hand. "Gennai… is there nothing we can do for them?" she asked sadly. "They just want to see their partners again."

"The Sovereigns have never trusted them, and they certainly won't be permitted in Digiworld as long as their Spores are active," he sighed, "but that's not the worst of it. In truth, some time after your battle with MaloMyotismon, their partners disappeared."

For what felt like the millionth time that day, the Chosen stared at him in shock.

"How can they just disappear?" exclaimed Yokomon.

"I've searched high and low," said the old guru. "They're simply gone. Not a single one of them has turned up for quite a while now. And their disappearances were first noted around the same time the Wall of Fire began to break down. I do think the two events are related."

"Well," said Taichi, swinging his arms, "it sounds bad, but that could also mean that once we fix the Wall, we'll get their partners back too. Everything seems to hinge on fixing the Wall."

"Until it breaks down again," Yamato muttered from the back of the group.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

"Gennai, don't we have a _real_ enemy?" Daisuke asked, almost like a whine.

"If, by 'real enemy,' you mean the kind you can go and punch, then the answer is I do not know. But you are certainly dealing with the kind that cannot be seen nor punched and which inflicts itself insidiously wherever it's least looked for. That kind of enemy is very real, and far more annoying."

"What do you recommend we do about the Spore Children, then?" Koushirou asked.

"For now, keep an eye on them," he answered. "The Spores are both powerful and mysterious. I don't know how they will manifest, but once you find out, contact me. We'll decide how to proceed from there.

"Well, I've kept you up far too long listening to an old man's prattle. It's time to return to the top. The tea will be cold by now, but I've laid out food and futons for each of you."

* * *

** Hikari's log  
Gennai's futons clearly haven't been aired for a while  
21:07**

** In the end, all we've done is preserve the status quo. Trips to Digiworld should be limited. Gennai will look after Gatomon and the others. Watch out for the Spore Children. Be prepared, not that we have any idea what for.**

** Why do I feel like we're so much more disorganized than usual? There's no way that can be. We were kids once, running around Digiworld without a map, with only the vaguest idea of how to fight. Mostly we just smacked things and crossed our fingers hoping they'd fall over. Back then, though, our enemy wasn't the least bit vague. I guess that's the scariest thing.**

** This must be the feeling that drove my brother to come here even though it's so dangerous. I can't think of anything in the world more terrifying than helplessness.**

* * *

Jou was jerked from his doze by the rattle of the sliding door.

Which was just as well. After all, there was really no need to squeeze all 193 lanky centimeters of him into the narrow corner between the wall and the bassinet which held Gomamon. The floor would work just fine. He stretched the kinks out of his back and legs, unfolding like an accordion.

"Jou-senpai?"

Mimi's voice was soft as down, but at the chime of it Jou lurched to his feet with all the haste of a pilot ejecting out of a burning aircraft. Cheeks flaming, he managed to look right at her for one endless second before his eyes involuntarily shifted elsewhere.

"M-Mimi-kun, what are you doing here?"

Her hair was braided over her shoulder and she wore a fluffy bathrobe. "Gennai thought you probably wouldn't want to leave Gomamon to sleep, so I volunteered to bring over your futon," she said, and patted the mattress, which Jou realized was stuck halfway through the door.

"What? Isn't it heavy?" Jou rushed to take it from her. "Wow, I'm so sorry. Gennai should have told me, I would have come to get it myself."

"It's not that heavy." She tucked a wayward curl behind her ear. Jou hesitated for a moment. She smiled. "Come on, between the two of us we can get it the rest of the way through."

He nodded and took hold of one end. Mimi slipped back into the hall and tried to angle the other side, and together they hoisted the futon over the tatami floor. Once they had set it up at the foot of Gomamon's cradle, Mimi padded out one more time and returned with a blanket and pillow.

"I'm sorry you had to go to so much trouble."

"No, I wanted to."

She shook out the blanket and spread it over the futon. Jou watched her, awkwardly stuffing the pillow into its case and simultaneously trying to think of something to say other than _I hope you don't mind that I'm going to completely remake the bed as soon as you're gone, because I'm neurotic to the point that I can't get to sleep if there are too many tucks in the blanket._

"Has he woken up at all?" Mimi asked, bending over Gomamon's cradle. Relieved that the pressure of making conversation was no longer on him, Jou stood up and moved next to her.

"No, not even once. Gennai said he will tomorrow. He got hit on the head pretty far. If he'd gone all the way back to Bukamon, Gennai thinks he might've recovered quicker, but for whatever reason he's like this…"

Mimi made a sympathetic little cooing sound. "That's awful. I'm sure I'd be completely frazzled if it were Palmon."

"Where is Palmon?"

"She fell asleep as soon as we came back, and I didn't want to wake her."

"Came back?"

Mimi related to him everything that Gennai had shown them in the underground portal-maze. By the time she finished, Jou's head spun.

"Wow."

"Tell me about it."

A lot of what she'd said didn't mean much to him, which was probably the case for most of the Chosen, Jou thought. The worst part for him was the bit about not visiting Digiworld much from now on. He wanted to be by Gomamon's side in the case that his condition was worse than Gennai predicted.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, digesting it all. Mimi gently carded Gomamon's fur, a thoughtful, drowsy look on her pale face. A wave of gratitude that she had come rushed through him. Something about the contented way she petted his partner's fur took some of the stress off his shoulders. As if, through her ability to be patient and wait, he could do it too.

"Did you eat?" Mimi asked.

Jou nodded at the remains of a fish and bowl of soup on a nearby tray. "Gennai brought me dinner before he left to see you guys."

"Good. Hey, you were here while Gennai was talking to Taichi-san and Yamato-san, right?"

He hesitated. "Yes, why?"

"Well, did you hear what they were saying?"

"Yeah." He grimaced. "Taichi's going to tell you all tomorrow."

Her gaze lingered on his face for a moment longer than was comfortable. "Alright," she said at last, sighing.

"I guess you're tired of hearing that," he said sheepishly.

She laughed. "Oh, God, am I ever. It feels like ever since I got off the plane, people have been hiding things, keeping secrets… But I guess we've had enough surprises for one day. Can you at least tell me if it's good news or bad news?"

"It's neutral news." She laughed again. "Sorry, that's the best I can do."

"I get it."

A pleasant silence fell again. He wasn't used to her being so calm.

"You must be dead on your feet."

"Yeah. I should get going. I really am tired." But she didn't move. Instead, she lowered her eyes, and looked at him sidelong. "Jou-senpai… thanks for what you said back there. About Leomon."

He colored up again, and stared resolutely at the opposite wall. "Well, it's all true."

"I know, and you're right. But it meant a lot hearing it from you." She looked away again. "I mean, you're the only other person who was there."

He dipped his chin. "You're welcome."

Mimi made an uncertain move to stand. She looked like she might say something else, but the spark quickly fled from her amber eyes and she got to her feet. Jou got up also and walked her to the door.

In the hall, the lights were out, but they could see a cozy glow coming from a room down the hall. "That's the girls' room. The guys are across the way," Mimi said, pointing. "Well, good night, Jou-senpai. I hope Gomamon's awake in the morning."

"Thanks. Good night, Mimi-kun."

She bit her lip and seemed to dawdle. Unexpectedly, she threw her arms around his waist. He caught her, his too long, too thin arms reacting for once with a sureness that surprised him. Once _again,_ he felt himself blushing to the tips of his ears.

"I meant it, Jou. I really really meant it."

Voice having left him, Jou could only nod. Mimi took her time unlocking her hands. But once she let go, she fled down the hall like a skittish doe and snapped the door to her room shut.

Numbly, Jou stared down the shadowy hall, thinking a million thoughts and unable to make sense of a one of them.

* * *

** Cipher Room  
Midnight**

There was something about making plans to "meet at midnight" that invoked all sorts of disturbing thoughts of haunted mansions, zombies, monsters in alleys. But as Koushirou sneaked out of the boys' room at the stroke of twelve, ghosts and goblins were far from his mind. He mostly felt sleepy. And a bit annoyed, because he'd been so comfy under the covers, drifting off with the shadows of the swimming fish outside dashed on the rice paper windows. His eyelids felt like sandpaper. But whatever reason Gennai had for calling him out when everyone else was lost in dreamland, he trusted would be worth his while.

He'd been to the Cipher Room several times before. It was Gennai's favorite place to study. Narrow bookshelves scaled the walls sky high, mysteriously curving in time with the room's oval shape. The desks and lanterns had the look of 16th century monastic décor, all dour acacia and low candlelight. But it was far more than a scriptorium. You could do anything in this room. Gennai had shown him so many secrets already, and Koushirou knew there were more that he'd probably never see.

Gennai was waiting for him by one of the desks, upon which was an enormous stone slab.

"Good morning, Koushirou," he said.

Koushirou mustered up a smile. "Good morning, Gennai."

"I'm sorry to make you get up when you all very much need to sleep. This won't take long. There are a couple things I had the chance to show some of the others before which I would like to show you now. Taichi wants to tell everyone tomorrow, but aside from the fact that I think it will be useful to prepare you ahead of time, I have one or two other ideas I would like to share with you as well."

"I'm ready whenever you are," said Koushirou, already eyeing the stone slab.

Gennai's eyes crinkled in a smile. "Come around here and take a better look."

Koushirou circled the desk so that the front of the stone was in his view. Although otherwise jagged and rough, the face of it was perfectly round and smooth. Crude etchings of Digicode were dug into the stone, forming a twister-like design that broke out from the edge and spiraled toward the center. It was otherwise unremarkable, except – Koushirou rubbed his eyes and glanced at it again. No, it was not just sleepiness pulling at him – those were phantom flames leaping in polished surface.

"A prophecy?" Koushirou asked.

"A poem," Gennai replied, though he didn't sound as if he intended to correct him. "It may be prophetic. Centarumon found this at the site of another end of the Wall of Fire several years ago. He and Agumon journeyed together to bring it back to me."

"They could move this?"

"Centarumon is a noble, sensitive spirit," said Gennai, "yet his abdominal muscles are pure steel."

The chirping little voice in his head that was Mimi giggled and prodded him to ask if Gennai often admired Centarumon's abs. Somehow Koushirou managed to suppress the temptation.

Instead, he asked the obvious: "What does it say?" He could interpret on his own if he tried, but it was slow going and he'd never liked poetry anyway.

"It's quite long," Gennai warned him. "The first verse runs like this:

'_The child who hides plays seeks to find,  
and when within the light is found,  
invokes fire to enshroud; prophet-blind  
looks upon the mountain's crown.'"_

"Wait – what did you say?" Koushirou asked, flustered. "'The child who hides –'"

"'– the child who hides plays seeks to find.'"

"'Plays seeks to find'? Not hide-and-seek? Is 'seeks to find' a kind of game?"

"Possibly."

"What's 'prophet-blind'? What mountain? What's the… fire that 'enshrouds'?"

"Well, this will take all night if you insist on dissecting each and every line now," Gennai chuckled, wiping his brow.

Koushirou obediently settled down. "What comes next?"

"'_Surrogate jar, gaze upon him  
smiling; that effervescent well –  
Seek you his soul, fettered in sin,  
and for your heart shall toll the bell._

_As for that young Euphemia,  
so consecrated a chalice,  
lock away the candelabra;  
in the dark consume with madness._

'_Neath dome of brass, o'er hollowed sea,  
a cantata raise – strike – awake!  
Stygian howl, postmortem shriek  
shall the blood-born tomb desecrate.'"_

Koushirou's mind reeled. This was exactly the reason he avoided literature classes like the plague. They were all metaphors and references and symbols. Symbolic computation he'd take a stab at, but not _metaphors._

"It really is a poem," he said at last. He peered at Gennai. "Who wrote it?"

"There's no name on the stone." Gennai tugged pensively at one end of his moustache.

"So, maybe it's like what you were talking about before, about how some things happen outside the Sovereigns' domain of influence. Like Ken's Crest."

"That is a possibility," answered Gennai.

Koushirou fell silent for a moment. "Have you understood any of it, Gennai?"

"I may have." Gennai pursed his lips and rolled his shoulders. Shuffling to the left side of the stone, he placed one stubby finger on one of the arcing lines. "As you may have surmised, I believe this poem has something to do with you children. Right here is what I talked to Taichi about before. The 'child who hides,' and the 'surrogate jar.' I feel very strongly that the latter is meant to be a person. Taichi is referenced in one of these two lines; which hinges on who is doing the 'gazing' in line five."

"Who… is…?"

"It could be that the jar is gazing on the child. Or, perhaps, the child is gazing on the jar."

"Well… we already know the child is looking at the mountain, though," Koushirou said, and scratched his head. "But what makes you think Taichi must be one of these two?"

"Because both the child and the jar have one thing in common: they are both 'seeking.' You are all here seeking something, but none more than Taichi: answers. A cure for his digitization. I see your face, and I agree, that alone is not enough to make such a connection… but alright, I'll come clean. For all this talk of their limitations, the Sovereigns still possess immense power. And knowledge. I went to Zhuqiaomon, the maker of Taichi's Crest. He confirmed that Taichi is concerned in the poem, but would not, or could not, elaborate on how."

"How did Taichi react when you told him he's a pot?"

At that Gennai threw his head back and guffawed. A corner of Koushirou's mouth tipped too as he watched Gennai's shoulders shake.

"Not well," sputtered Gennai. "I believe he said, 'The first person who tries to stick a geranium in me gets sucker-punched.' I do not know what the jar represents other than, potentially, Taichi. But that's our mission for the future: interpreting this poem. Let's stop for now, though. I think we're both a bit too punchy to do a full analysis."

Koushirou wasn't about to argue with that.

Leaving the stone for the time being, Gennai drew his attention to a small silver square lying on another desk. "I want to give this to you. I think it's the right time. Your knowledge of the Digital World is greater than you realize." Koushirou blushed darkly. "This will enable you to see the worlds the way I do."

The silver square was cold in his palm. It didn't look like much of a gadget except for the metal head clearly meant for plugging into a USB port.

Koushirou looked at Gennai, mystified. "What do you mean, 'see the worlds the way you do'? That sounds like an incredible catch-all."

"Catch-all. Deus ex machina. Call it what you like, but I imagine you'll be needing it soon. In that drive I've downloaded almost all of the Cipher Room."

Koushirou had to fight to keep himself from shouting.

"But, Koushirou." Something hard glinted in Gennai's eye. "Use it wisely. And use it well. If you do otherwise…

"… it will reject you."

* * *

** Some hallway  
Early in the A.M.**

"I really don't think we're supposed to be down here, Yamato…"

"Geez, Gabumon, relax, would you? If we're not supposed to be somewhere, Gennai should tell us, or put up signs at least."

"We've never had much luck with signs in the past."

"Those weren't signs – well, they were _signs,_ but not – they were a pun. Because another word for 'sign' is 'omen.' So they were omens of danger posing as signs. I'm talking about _real_ signs, _useful_ signs."

_"'Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries'_ is an omen?"

"How should I know?"

Hands thrust in the pockets of his jacket, Yamato stalked down the hall with Gabumon at his side. His eyes were used to the dark by now, and the threadbare gleam of moonlight helped.

"Man, why does Gennai have so many long, narrow hallways?" he said.

"Maybe he enjoys mopping."

Yamato paused midstep and stared at his partner. "… You know, that question really didn't require an answer, and definitely not that one."

Gabumon glared at him. He'd always been hopeless at discerning sarcasm.

Yamato had spent most of the night tossing fitfully and resisting the urge to strangle Daisuke every time he kicked him in his sleep. He wanted to nod off so badly. Tomorrow they'd go home, and he'd have to patch things up with the band, and for that he really needed to be awake. After a couple of hours, he'd all but resigned himself to an extra large coffee, black, no sugar, as soon as he got back to his apartment.

He was going to have such a caffeine headache.

Around midnight, after Yamato had tried everything from singing himself lullabies (he kept throwing in riffs on the electric guitar) to examining his cuticles (the fact that he even knew they were _called_ cuticles scared him), the lump that was Koushirou suddenly began to squirm around. Then Koushirou got up, put on his slippers, and disappeared into the hall. Yamato, of course, assumed he'd gone to the bathroom, but when another restless half an hour passed and Koushirou still hadn't come back, he started to get concerned. Of course there was no reason for it. They were literally in the safest place Digiworld could offer. And Koushirou was one of the "quiet ones." There was no knowing his motives.

But if he followed that logic, he wouldn't have a convenient excuse for why he was wandering the halls in the wee hours of the morning, so if anyone asked, he was desperately concerned for the welfare of his friend.

"Are you getting tired yet?" Gabumon asked.

Yamato glanced back at him. "You're exhausted. You should've stayed and rested."

"I'm just fine," Gabumon said, stifling a monster yawn.

Yamato sighed. There had been no sign of Koushirou, and more than himself, he wanted Gabumon to get a good night's rest. Resting his hand in the warm fur around Gabumon's horn, Yamato gave him a soft grin. "Alright, this is useless. Let's go back."

Gabumon perked up immediately and scuttled off the way they came. Yamato followed in slow, heavy steps, drinking in the lonely pre-dawn quiet. He'd always loved the middle of the night. It made him miss his harmonica.

It was no wonder he couldn't sleep, still angry over the sword and Gennai's bargain, over what Gennai had told them about Taichi. Over Taichi himself, being so off the wall just this morning, yet so calm and collected when Gennai told him he really thought Taichi should get used to the idea of being digital.

Remembering made him turn and kick the wall.

It clattered.

"Yamato?" Gabumon peered at him curiously.

"This wall is hollow," Yamato realized.

He placed a hand on it and searched out a groove with his fingertips. With a look of deep consternation, Gabumon put his paws on his waist and tugged at the jacket.

"Look, this is why I said we shouldn't be down here…"

But he didn't feel like listening. After a few careful yanks, the wooden slats gave way, folding over on another like a _sensu_ fan. The hidden door scraped open with a screech, as if could use an oiling.

Inside was dark and windowless. Yamato coughed into his elbow as a wave of dust rode into the air. Cobwebs decked the ceiling and walls, dangling like tattered wedding veils.

Yamato pulled out his cell phone and flipped on the light. In the dim glow, he could make out the spines of endless books, a wall of paintings mounted over other paintings, none of which he could see well enough to make out what they were. For all its bounty, the room was small and cramped, and the books carried a distinct mildewy smell.

_Must be an abandoned library,_ Yamato thought, reaching for one of the books. As soon as his finger touched the weathered tweed, the binding disintegrated, leaving the cover flopping limply and the pages in disarray. He pinched his nose to stifle a sneeze.

"Yamato, come look at this."

Yamato turned. Gabumon was standing almost directly behind him, the room too tight for much else. He pointed to a dusty rack.

"Does that look familiar to you?" he asked, and Yamato didn't need to ask for a clarification.

The vial. It was Taichi's vial. Only – maybe not, because this one was coated in layers of grime collected over many years, and furthermore, the nacreous liquid inside was almost gone.

It wasn't the same one. Even so, seething anger built in Yamato that was positively volcanic. _Secrets. He's still keeping secrets._ A fog fell over his eyes. There was nothing left but him and an all-encompassing, crimson rage.

* * *

**Chapter Notes:**

1.] _Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries:_ From _Monty Python and the Holy Grail,_ bien entendu.

2.] _sensu_ fan: There are two main types of Japanese fans, _sensu_ and _uchiwa._ The former is your typical accordion-like folding fan. (But I'd already used the accordian comparison for Jou so.) _Uchiwa_ is a broad, flat fan.

3.] Digimon genders: Obviously I'm sort of having my way. If we go by Renamon, Digimon have no assigned genders. I'm totally down with that, but it makes for awkward writing. So, even though Garudamon has a rather manly chest, she's gonna be a she. Silphymon was more difficult because Hawkmon is half the bargain, but in the end I decided since Hikari and Miyako are both girls, we're just gonna use female pronouns. I'm sure Hawkmon doesn't mind because girls are super cool.

_Er, I'll be honest and say I completely forgot to make notes in this chapter, so if you see something you don't get or you can tell I left out, let me know. Anyway, that's it for our loooongest chapter at over 13,000 words! We're just shy of page 200 too. I did my best to calm things down at the end and help y'all digest that little *cough* info-dump in the middle. Let me know how I fared. Haha, yes, the absurd poem in chapter one DOES have a use in the story! You might notice I changed the word "Siren's" to "hollowed." I'm a crappy poet, but the Siren was really unnecessary._

_Thanks for your wonderful reviews. Here in the desolate land of Japan, I can live without mango sorbet, but not without your fuzzy-wuzzy witticisms. (shut up and take the compliment)_

… _although instead of mango sorbet, here we have mikan popsicles. OMG BEST._

_(reviews are still better)_


	15. Mixed Loyalties

_A/N: And we're back! Please enjoy the next chapter in which after a nearly endless Friday, the sun finally rises on the weekend. Yaaaay. I promised myself I'd post this by the end of January, but I missed that goal by some hours… Still not so bad, though, right? Anyway read, have a ball, and let me know what you think! Thanks as always!_

* * *

**Chapter Fifteen**

**Mixed Loyalties**

"_I am no prophet – and here's no great matter;  
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,  
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,  
And, in short, I was afraid."  
- __T.S. Eliot, _"The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock"

** 08.12.2006**

** SAT**

** 6:30**

Morning came early for Miyako, unfurling in the same pinks and golds that illumined Gennai's sea garden most hours of the day. She checked the time on her cell phone, then inspected her bunkmates.

Hikari was curled on her side, Gatomon cocooned in blankets beside her, both fast asleep. Across the room, Mimi and Sora lay peacefully on their backs, Mimi with one hand thrown over her head and Palmon draped over her stomach.

Surprising though it was, Miyako felt no inclination to go back to bed, even though they'd all agreed not to bother each other before nine. Weariness crept on the fringes of her mind, like the prickling of numb legs after an hour of sitting _seiza_. Eventually it would conquer her, but between the glare of the sun through the windows and her nerves, singing since yesterday, she knew she wouldn't be falling back asleep.

It had been a fun night, though. Even after everything. Having Hikari, Sora, and Mimi in the same room all at once hardly ever happened. Silly as it sounded, she just loved to watch them, the three women she admired most in the world – Hikari with her pretty mannerisms that belied her sarcastic streak; Mimi and her bubbly, provocative chatter and open heart; and Sora, the great riddle, with her powerful athlete's legs and slender wrists, her assertive way of moving with both purpose and elegance. Miyako had met Sora's mother only a few times, but for all the spats between mother and daughter, she found them really alike, both sharing the same fierce resolve. It was present even while Sora lay sprawled on the floor rolling with huge belly laughs.

Among the three of them, Miyako sometimes felt a bit lost. A flamingo bobbing along on inverted knees had more grace than she did. Her hair seemed like drab, limp spaghetti, and anything she came up with to say sounded like silly child's prattle in her head. Luckily having fun came easier to her than moping. But there were times when she wasn't sure what she wanted more, to be around her friends or to actually _be_ them.

They hadn't spent much time chatting, but after helping Jou with his futon, Mimi flounced in red-cheeked and overcome with giggles, and that had entertained them for a while. At first Miyako thought Mimi must have kissed him, but apparently even though Mimi was well-versed in the arena of love, where Jou was concerned, something as simple as a hug (that was not altogether reciprocated) could set her off like a junior high girl writing her first love letter to her crush.

And, in a way, Miyako supposed Jou was just that for Mimi. She'd heard bits and pieces about how close they'd been when they were kids, and the puppy love Jou nursed for Mimi before she moved to America. Mimi claimed she'd liked him back, though the look on Sora's face when she said as much was skeptical. Miyako wished she could get Sora alone just to gossip about Mimi – between Sora's own observations and Mimi's propensity to tell her everything, probably no one understood the situation better. And Jou, too, confided in Sora a lot. She was that kind of trustworthy person. But Sora wasn't a gossip-y type (which, Miyako acknowledged ruefully, was exactly why people confided in her in the first place). While Mimi could be depended upon to spill her heart to anyone who would listen, Sora wouldn't reveal anything that had the potential to embarrass Jou.

Hikari sometimes relayed things she heard on the grapevine to Miyako _("My brother says that Sora-san says that Mimi-san says…")_, but only once in a while – she honestly didn't have an interest. "It's great for Mimi," she'd said last night. "I hope things work out for them. I'm really tired, though, see you in the morning." Sometimes Hikari made a frustrating best friend. If it had been one of her sisters, Miyako would've been up half the night in a titillating gabfest.

Mimi and Jou. When she tried to picture it, between his noodle-armed awkwardness and her petite vivacity they made one odd pair. But also undeniably cute.

Hawkmon and Yokomon stayed up late in some heavy discussion – the business with the Omega Sword, Miyako assumed, based on what little she'd caught. They were bundled together by the window now, but Hawkmon's feathers rustled when Miyako sat up, and one eye peeled open.

"It's early," he mumbled, beak buried under a wing.

"Then you can get a head start on preening," she said as she threw off the covers and scrambling to her feet. The pale blue yukata Gennai had provided each of them for sleepwear was down-soft; the thought of changing back into yesterday's dirty clothes and mud-caked shoes put a few fine wrinkles in her nose. Well, there was no hurry. In slippered feet, she quietly opened the door and stepped into the hall, Hawkmon's talons clacking on the wood as he followed.

An early morning chill hung in the air, so Miyako swerved down the hallway she knew led to the kitchen to make tea. "What did you and Yokomon talk about last night?" she asked her partner.

"Oh, this and that," he answered with a sigh. "They're infuriating, the Sovereigns, really. Yokomon and I are both concerned about how much Baihumon appears to dislike you lot. Losing the Omega Sword was a blow, but if it mollifies him for the time being…"

Miyako glanced at him sidelong. "You don't think he'd do something to keep us apart, do you?"

"I think he intends to do exactly that, he just lacks an excuse. Or the means."

Miyako's good mood evaporated. She hadn't gathered any of that from yesterday's events. That Baihumon hated them, sure, that much a monkey would understand, but that he would actually _do_ something to separate them…

Hawkmon bumped his head against her leg. "Well, that's just what _I_ think," he added. "Some of the others aren't quite so worried. Or, if they are, it's not because of Baihumon. I admit, for all his thunderous howling, he comes off too rash and unreliable to concoct an actual plan. The trade for the Omega Sword was Gennai's idea, after all."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" Miyako sniffed. "All that means is he has to find someone who _can_ come up with a plan, right?"

"I'm offended." Hawkmon shot her a look of reproach that failed to mask his affection for her. "Why are you so worried? No matter what Baihumon tries, I would die before I let him separate us." This declaration, while touching, only distressed Miyako further, so Hawkmon leapt up to her shoulder and nipped at her ear. His weight unbalanced her for a moment. "Miyako, we've fought a lot of battles in the past, and we've pulled through. I don't want to coddle you because I know you hate it, and because I think you can handle the truth. Whatever happens, I swear, I will never leave you."

Her heart still felt heavy, but she offered him a weak smile and a pat on the head. He pretended to be very put out by the pat, and they lapsed into the familiar comfort of a petty squabble the rest of the way to the kitchen.

Someone was already inside.

"Who could be up at this hour?" Miyako exclaimed.

_"We're_ up," grumped Hawkmon, still sulking over the pat.

"It's not even seven, and we were dead tired yesterday. We all made plans to sleep in…"

"Why don't you go in and find out?"

She did, opening the door to reveal a compact room with cupboards and counter space to one side and a plain wood table by the window. A kettle simmered on the two-burner stove, and seated on the counter was Taichi, mug in hand. Agumon hung back by his dangling legs.

The stormy look on Taichi's face as he brooded into his mug made Miyako hesitate in the doorway. Lately she spent more time around Taichi than she did around her own brother. Whether he was teasing them at the dinner table, or squeezing in between them while they watched TV so he could avoid studying, he was always Hikari's clownish, doting _oniichan._ But just then she felt like she'd never met the boy in that room. He wasn't even doing anything suspicious – drinking tea, swinging a leg back and forth – and yet the atmosphere around him crackled. No one was with him but Agumon, so why this feeling of having walked into the middle of something? She'd have left him and gone back, if she hadn't already opened the door.

Taichi paused mid-sip. "Hey," he said in mild surprise, with an indecisive little twist of his hand which she supposed was meant to be a wave.

"… Hey," she said in return.

A pause.

"I didn't think anyone would be up yet," he said, fnor some reason sounding apologetic, which threw her off. She heard herself say:

"You're up," and wanted to kick herself. There was a smug glint in Hawkmon's eye. Maybe she'd kick him instead.

"Yeah," replied Taichi, "guess I am. Want some tea?"

"Sure." Why not? Tea was the reason she came here in the first place. Stupid tea. Stupid internal alarm clock.

He grinned at her then, the same playful look he often got when he was feeling impish but lazy. She was accustomed to that grin, but the charge in the air hadn't disappeared.

"Girls sure are noisy," Agumon said as Taichi handed her a steaming mug. "What were you all doing last night? We could hear you going on for an hour."

"Gossiping," Hawkmon answered with a note of disapproval.

"It's not gossip if the concerned party is part of the conversation," Miyako protested. _Well, one of the concerned parties, at least._ "We had a lot to talk about. So what? You boys just conked out the minute you shut the door?"

Taichi shook his head. "Never get between a man and his beauty rest, Miyako-chan. Ladies have makeup for that, but when we menfolk don't get enough sleep, we wake up looking like the Face of Boe. Only hairier."

She raised an eyebrow at that, and he laughed and saluted her with his mug. Maybe she was overreacting. He _seemed_ fine. And she had been more tense than usual since Friday.

A door in the back, leading to the veranda, slid aside to admit Yamato and Gabumon. Neither looked like they'd managed to get much sleep. The moment Yamato's eyes fell on her, his expression clouded over. To her Yamato could be a bit intimidating in general, but he was downright scary with his jaw clenched and his glare underscored by the shadowy sweep of his lashes. Miyako felt herself shrinking.

"Good morning," she croaked.

"Morning," he mumbled, shifting his attention to Taichi even as he spoke. "I still can't find it," he told his friend. "We retraced our steps, but the room's gone."

"Yeah, this place is a fun house," Taichi acknowledged.

"We have to say something to him about it."

"Now that you know I can't get on board with." His tone was warning. "And I'm done talking about this."

"What's the matter with you? You came here for answers, this is our biggest lead yet. Maybe our only one. But you –"

_"– Trust Gennai._ And, anyway, we'd just wig everyone out again."

"So you think this is paranoia?" Yamato snipped.

"That's not what I said," Taichi shot back. He hopped off the table and stood with his arms crossed.

Miyako had been right, she _was_ interrupting something. Whatever debate there was between the two of them had clearly started before she'd arrived, and put both in a foul mood. She ought to sneak out, now, and make the best of her newfound chameleon-like power to vanish in plain sight (because she was _right there,_ three feet away, but they might as well be alone on another planet). At the same time… she couldn't help but be intrigued. What did Taichi think would make them "wig out?" What room?

She took another inconspicuous sip of tea and tried to blend in with the kitchen décor.

"Are you sure about what you saw?" Agumon was asking. "I mean, paintings and bookshelves… why would Gennai keep anything important in a library?"

"To throw people off," Yamato answered brusquely. "To make them think it's just a library, and a musty one at that, so they leave almost as soon as they come in."

"Besides, any room that's got a hidden door and can possibly relocate at will would make a pretty good hiding place," Gabumon added.

"I'll admit that's a pretty souped up room, but then why bother with the whole faux library thing?" Taichi asked. "If you can't get there except through a secret door, you're gonna know it's a trick from the start."

"Taichi, I don't know, that's why we have to talk to Gennai about it. Hey, if it's like you say, then he's got nothing to hide, right?"

Taichi's shoulders began to slump. "It just feels… disloyal," he said, sounding beaten. "If he wanted us to know, he'd tell us himself. If he has nothing to hide, then our asking about it is gonna make it look like we don't trust him. After everything he's done for us."

"I get that," Yamato said in a softer voice. "But we're almost adults, now. Jou's even in college. Maybe he's not hiding things so much as keeping them from us, because he still thinks of us as kids. We're old enough to ask questions without the answers flying over our heads. Anyway, we showed how much we trust him when we turned over the Omega Sword."

Silence followed that last remark as Taichi stared at the ground. His arms relaxed. "I guess you're right," he said at last.

Relief broke out over Yamato's brow. "Good. 'Cause I am right."

"Yeah, which makes a total of _once."_

Yamato punched his shoulder. "Smart ass."

They grinned at each other, then finally seemed to remember that Miyako was there. Yamato glanced from her to Taichi and shot the latter a pointed look.

"Hey," said Taichi brightly as he came over to her, "do me a favor and don't spread this around, okay? I mean, you don't have to lie or anything." He blushed. "I don't care if you tell people you heard us talking, but just try not to get people worried, okay?"

"What happened?" Miyako asked, thinking that she'd heard so much and so little, and if he wanted to keep people from worrying he'd better fill in the gaps.

"It's really not a big deal. Yamato found a hidden room last night and thinks it's kind of suspicious."

"The _room's_ not suspicious, what's _inside_ it is," Yamato corrected.

"What's inside it?"

"Don't know for sure," said Taichi. "Earlier we went to check it out and couldn't find it. Yamato just came back from searching again. So that's what we're gonna ask Gennai about. It could be nothing."

She wondered just how long he could keep at beating around the bush. "What do you think it is?"

"Well, like I said, you'd wig out if I told you."

"Fine," said Hawkmon, unimpressed, "keep your secrets, but don't forget that if you're understating what's really going on, you will end up with several potato-sized lumps on your head before the others are through with you."

"That's not the worst kind of lump," Taichi said with a shrug. "I can't stand lumpy pillows, for instance."

"Or lumpy oatmeal," suggested Yamato.

"No way!" Gabumon looked stricken. "The lumps are the best part!"

"Yeah, and what about lumpy peanut better?" Agumon put in with an enthusiastic nod.

Taichi quirked his brow at Hawkmon as Agumon and Gabumon got caught up in heated debate ("That's not _lumpy,_ it's _chunky")_. "See what you started?"

Miyako decided to leave them to their bickering, and telling Hawkmon he might as well look for his own breakfast, she wandered back the way she came to find the showers.

* * *

The other Chosen woke up one after another over the next few hours. The tea was left out on a table in one of the tatami rooms, and after a while almost everyone had gathered there, spread out on the floor, talking and laughing. Around nine thirty Sora poked her head in the doorway and told everyone to go fold up their futons. Around ten fifteen she came back to yell at them for not listening and being bad house guests, and quiet fell over the room for a bit while the kids sheepishly went to clean up after themselves.

Daisuke slept the latest. He had more reason than most to be tired, so no one wanted to bug him. But breakfast was ready by ten thirty, and knowing how he hated to miss a meal, Miyako decided to wake him by yanking the blankets out from under him. She was doing him a favor. He hated folding things.

"Women are evil," Daisuke declared once he'd cleared his head of sleep fuzz enough to wonder how he'd ended up with his rear in the air and face planted on the floor.

Miyako carefully touched each corner of the blanket together. "Yeah, I let you sleep in and now I'm cleaning up your mess. Clearly I'm the devil incarnate."

He stared at her.

"C'mon, Daisuke. Up and at 'em," came Taichi's voice as he passed by the room.

"Oooaay," answered Daisuke with a wobbly attempt at a thumbs-up.

"He'll be groggy for a while." Ken, who'd valiantly offered to come with her to face the sleeping dragon, stacked the futon against the wall, then crouched behind Daisuke and slipped his arms under his friend's. "Let's go," he said, heaving him to his feet.

"Aaugh, Ken," Daisuke leaned on Ken and allowed himself to be dragged out the door, "you better be taking me to another bed, 'cause I'm sleeping till the dinosaurs come back on their flying asteroid. Make it a featherbed. No, a water bed. A _huge_ water bed in a room with an endless supply of gum drops."

"No gum drops or water beds, but there's breakfast. D'you want to get dressed first?"

A groan.

"Guess that's a no."

_Slam._ Miyako paused mid-fold.

"Ow – you guys okay?" asked Sora from the hall.

"Yes," said Ken.

"No," said Daisuke. "Don't wanna get dressed. Just wanna sleep, why won't you people let me sleep_… ooh _look, Ken,_ fishies!"_

"Daisuke. Food."

* * *

"Have you ever read _Rainbow Fish?"_ Daisuke asked with his mouth full. Predictably, he hadn't stopped talking about the fish all through breakfast.

"Of course," said Takeru, who had a book with every meal. "The Rainbow Fish has beautiful rainbow scales, and all the other fish admire him for it. But because the scales are what attract people to him, the fish becomes vain and starts to care more about his scales than anything else. He has to learn kindness and selflessness by giving the scales one by one to other fish."

"That's when he can finally make true friends without worrying that they only like him for his scales," added Patamon proudly.

"It just means he bribed the other fish to be his friends," said Daisuke.

"It does not," Miyako scowled.

"It's a socialist parable," Yamato shouted down the table. "Rainbow Fish has more beautiful scales than anyone else, and no one's really happy until he's divided them equally among them all."

"God, Yamato, not everything has an agenda, you know." Sora rolled her eyes, but her tone was playful.

Takeru looked like someone had spit in his Fruit Loops. Hikari's face dropped in her hands as her shoulders quaked with laughter.

The same long table where they'd drunk tea and discussed how to rescue Taichi had been appropriated for breakfast. As if by instinct, the junior and senior teams each claimed one half. Their partners either sat next to them or in their preferred spots, such as laps or heads.

"What if the scales are actually LSD," Miyako heard Taichi say from the farthest end of the table. "You know, because of how they're these psychedelic, holofoil things in the pictures. It's a _metaphor._ The moral of the story is, everything's better on acid."

"I am starting to understand why you flunk every time we have to write a literary critique."

"Taichi-san, speaking of metaphors…" Koushirou interrupted.

Miyako's ears piqued, and so did most everyone else's. Conversation abruptly died down.

Taichi noticed and frowned. "Yes, _he speaks,"_ he quipped, looking annoyed, but Koushirou stopped him with a look. "Okay, fine, I get it. I, um. Well."

He scratched behind his ear uncertainly. "I have to tell you about something I learned from Gennai."

Across from Miyako, Hikari's brow knit with concern. Half the team looked bewildered, the other half as if they'd been waiting for a bomb to drop.

"First – well, first, the good news, Gomamon's just fine."

Daisuke let out a whoop, which actually garnered some laughs. A few people clapped and Yamato gave Jou a slap on the back.

"He's gonna recuperate here for a while, right, Jou? But Gennai says he's so far out of the woods, he's practically back in Odaiba. So there's that. It sounds like most of our partners are gonna stay here, like they've been doing. This is probably the safest place around. And Gennai's lifting the ban on us coming here. Well, for you guys, not for me so much. You probably shouldn't plan any Digiworld picnics, but now that he's got a handle on the instability of the Wall of Fire, Gennai says we might even be able to help by diving in now and then.

"To get to the point, as you all know, Yamato and I held a conference with Gennai while he was looking after Gomamon yesterday. He told us some of what he told everyone later, when we visited the Wall of Fire. But as might be expected, turns out there's a little more. Involving my being digitized and all that. There's this… poem Gennai found –"

"Wait, a poem?!" Daisuke exclaimed, dropping his toast. "We're all intimidated because of a haiku?"

"It's hardly a haiku," Koushirou replied. "Though it's not exactly a prophecy, Gennai thinks it's at least prophetic."

"What does the poem say?" Mimi asked Taichi.

"Well, there's this jar –"

_"'There's this jar'?!"_ Daisuke had now reached ear-splitting frequencies. "Taichi-senpai, _come on,_ a poem, a jar – what does any of that have to do with us?"

"I'm getting to that."

"That's enough. Daisuke, settle down," Sora admonished him. "You're going from 'cute' to 'brat' at record speed."

Daisuke made a face and slumped over the table. Miyako bit her lip. Any other time, she'd make fun of him, but he was so sensitive about Taichi lately. They were only here because that concern had driven Daisuke to not only open a digital gate for Taichi, but to dive in with him.

"There's this jar that appears in the poem," Taichi went on after a beat. "Gennai thinks it's supposed to be me, for some reason. _'Surrogate jar, gaze on him smiling…' _something, something. But in the end, he doesn't know what the poem means, except that it's important. And it might be able to tell us how to fix the Wall. That's just speculation on his part, I don't know where he got _'Wall of Fire for Dummies'_ from that blob of words, but there you go."

"So we have to analyze the poem. Here are copies." Koushirou halved a stack of papers and passed them down the table. "And I'm going to give it my best try, but…"

"I'd rather face MetalEtemon again than try to make sense of a poem," said Jou in a strangled voice as he stared at his copy.

"Hang on, I just want to point out, it's not the writing technique that's causing difficulty. This isn't going to require hours pouring over Strunk and White. In fact it's fairly straightforward. What we're missing is context. It's bound to be all very specific to Digiworld. For example, where it says _'mountain's crown,'_ I think we can take that as a literal mountain peak, so the question is which one?"

"I don't know…" Takeru cupped his chin, scanning the poem intently. "I'm sure that's true, but there are a few motifs here, allusions… Each line has eight syllables, except three and four, which have nine and seven, dividing into eight and eight anyway. But that's the only place it deviates. I bet it means something. And _'Euphemia'_ definitely has nothing to do with Digiworld. _'Stygian' –_ that refers to the River Styx, Greek mythology, the river that carries the dead to the underworld…"

He finally realized everyone was looking at him. Color rushed to his cheeks. "That's how I analyze poetry," he said hastily, "just throw around ideas until something seems to fit."

Taichi shrugged. "All in favor of leaving analysis of the poem to Takeru?"

Every hand shot up.

Takeru's blush deepened. "It's not like I'm a scholar," he said weakly.

"What are you talking about, Takeru-kun, you're our best bet," Miyako cried.

"We won't leave you on your own. We're all going to put our heads together," said Koushirou, who chose to ignore the others as their clawed at their throats in expressions of hellish pain. "But you do seem to have a better handle on it than the rest of us."

"You're all acting like a poem is a puzzle with a clear final picture that anyone can solve. That's not a poem, that's a riddle."

"There is a prophecy hidden within this poem," Koushirou replied. "It was written with a distinct purpose. You're right, it's not a riddle, and I'm sure we'll have to allow for individual interpretation… but if it can head us off in the right direction at all, I'd sooner have your ideas than not."

Hikari nodded in agreement. "If anyone in this room has a chance of making heads or tails of this, it's you."

Fidgeting uncomfortably, Takeru looked into his bowl of cereal and nodded. "Well, alright then." He was going to take this mega seriously, Miyako knew. The two of them had formed a truce a long time ago: she wouldn't try to figure out what he liked so much about misplaced and misshapen words, and in return he wouldn't ask her to explain why there were so many kinds of graphics cards.

"That wasn't as bad as I expected," said Mimi with a relieved smile.

"Yeah, from the way Yamato stormed out yesterday, I thought for sure Gennai had predicted Armaggedon," laughed Palmon.

From the far corner across from Taichi, Yamato suddenly shifted. "He hasn't told you everything." He sat upright. "Tell them why he bothered explaining that he thinks you're the _'jar,'_ Taichi."

His best friend glared at him. "It's not a big deal."

"I swear, if you say that one more time…"

"It's _not,"_ Taichi repeated loudly. He turned so the whole table could see him. "I came here for answers, didn't I? About why I – disappear sometimes. Why I'm being digitized. How to stop it, if it can be stopped. You heard Gennai last night. He doesn't know of a way."

"Gennai doesn't know a lot of things," muttered Yamato.

"Even so, he knows a hell of a lot more than us. So he just pointed out to me – the jar, it has a job. It's a _'surrogate'_ for something. He thinks that it – that _I _have a job to do. And that being digitized might be part of how I can do it."

"In other words," Yamato broke in again, "his advice was to stop resisting. To just give in."

Taichi's fist clenched at his side.

Overwhelmed, Miyako's mouth slipped open. She didn't know what she'd expected to hear, but – Gennai told Taichi to _give up?_

"That's bull," Daisuke growled, leading off a cacophony of protests.

"Why would he say that?"

"You must have misunderstood him."

"How can you do any job if you're just particles of data?"

"He said he'd keep looking. He said we might find a way to fix _you_ by fixing the Wall."

"Oniichan," Hikari said at last, tearfully, "you don't agree with him, do you?"

Her brother hesitated, glancing down as if he were trying to come up with the right words. Which was answer enough. Miyako wondered if Hikari would cry, but to her surprise, the horror began to fade from her friend's face, and a fiery resolve replaced it.

"Well, I don't," she snapped.

Taichi shook his head. "Look, Yamato's exaggerating. It's not like he told me to completely lose hope. He was just pointing out that we need to be realistic our options."

"Realistic or not," she countered solemnly, "I won't let you give up."

"Me either," Agumon put in, a hand on Taichi's arm. "That's what I told him yesterday. None of us will let him, right?"

"No," came every voice in the room.

"I don't know why Gennai said what he did. Maybe he just wanted to calm you down, so that you don't do anything stupid, like run away to Digiworld on your own." Agumon nudged his partner with his elbow. "But it's not good enough for me. And if this were anyone else, it wouldn't be good enough for you either. We'll find a way."

"How?" muttered Taichi.

"We just will," said Agumon.

* * *

Telling Taichi he wasn't allowed to give up was all well and good, Miyako thought, but it wasn't as if they could reach into his brain and pluck every dismal thought before it had time to sprout.

"Sometimes just knowing other people are rooting for you is enough," Takeru pointed out while they gathered on the veranda to say their good-byes.

"Yeah, but isn't it weird that we even have to? I mean, I guess I thought Taichi-san would always keep running."

"You should have seen him when he showed up at my place," Daisuke murmured as he and Ken entered their little huddle. "He was a total wreck. But at least he wasn't resigned to – to whatever this is. Man, what the hell did that old fart say to him?"

"'That old fart' is still our Gennai." Takeru frowned. "Maybe Taichi-san's right and Niisan's just overreacting."

_'So you think this is paranoia?'_ The discussion in the kitchen flooded back to her in a rush. Through the corner of her eye she sneaked a peek at Yamato, sitting with Gabumon on the steps. She walked over to them.

Yamato looked up as she sat down beside him. Embarrassed, Miyako made a brief attempt to meet his eyes, but quickly diverted her stare to the ground. They had never had much to talk about, her and Yamato. Her high school friends squealed and fell to pieces when they found out she'd spent time in his company, but it wasn't as if the two of them talked music over tea and raspberry scones every Sunday afternoon.

Once she'd done some mixing for his band. That had been fun, though Yutaka had kept her chatting most of the time. Yamato was his aloof self, settled at the far end of the studio strumming his guitar and gazing at the blank wall.

"So…" she began after an uncomfortable pause. Well, she felt it was uncomfortable, at least – Yamato could have been a cow out to pasture for all the difference her sudden presence made. "Did you and Taichi-san – you know… Talk to Gennai?"

His lips pinched ever so slightly. "He's on it, he says. I told him to let me handle it, but he insisted. I might as well yell at him in pig latin."

"Sounds like the Snorlax that refuses to move out of the way to Route 12."

He actually let out a small laugh. "Seven years and I still haven't found Taichi's Poké flute."

Warm pleasure rushed through her. She, Inoue Miyako, somewhat nerdy and freakishly tall high school freshman, had made Ishida Yamato – the Teenage Wolves' Ishida Yamato, hot and distant Ishida Yamato, Ishida Yamato about whose backside all the girls in one entire third year class had written bad sonnets that rhymed "Rather than geography class/ I'd prefer to map your ass" – had made him laugh. And she hadn't even worked for it. Few outside of his closest friends could boast of such a feat.

Now his expression had turned perplexed, and she realized her grin had taken on that "giggly gleeful" quality her sisters said reminded them of that one time their parents let her have a glass of wine. She forced herself to breath normally.

"Is everyone ready to go?" Sora called out.

Miyako started. "Wait – does that mean –?" She swiveled around, searching among the throng for Taichi's unmistakable hairstyle (well, that wasn't perfectly true, some people mistook it for a shrub). She found him in an open section of garden, tossing apples in the air for Agumon to then torch. Many of their partners were gathered around licking their lips as their waited for their roast apple treat.

Yamato stood. She watched him stride purposefully over the dark wood planks of the veranda, jump the rail and make for the clearing. Taichi spotted him while he was still a ways off, but waited another minute or so before pausing the game. The Digimon swarmed on the pile of roasted apples as Yamato pulled Taichi aside.

She had no idea what they were saying, but Yamato was definitely laying it into him, judging from the flurry of emotions that winked over Taichi's face. At one point Yamato flung his arms wide open, while Taichi crossed his own over his chest, maintaining a glare of flat refusal.

"Don't worry, this is nothing major. They would never have lasted this long without punching each other when they were in elementary school," said Gabumon.

Miyako jumped, having forgotten he was there. "Really?"

"They were – how did Jou put it – like flint in a box of matches."

At least matches burn up quick, she thought. Taichi and Yamato parted moments later, and Yamato returned to the veranda in a huff. With an irritated swipe he grabbed his bag and hooked it over his arm.

"That looked like it went well," commented Gabumon.

"As well as can be expected when you're trying to shake sense into an ox." His arm made a jerky, anxious movement.

"So he's not going to talk to Gennai after all?" Miyako asked.

"He's still saying he will, just not now, because _the planets are not auspiciously aligned_ or something just as stupid." As he spoke he was doing odd things in the air with his hands, which that Miyako belatedly realized was a terrible impression of Taichi. Yamato's hands were meant to represent Taichi's hair, but mostly just looked like moose antlers. So much for hot, distant, rock star Ishida Yamato.

She definitely felt for him, though. If Taichi meant to keep his promise to confront Gennai, now would be the best time to do it, while they were safe and actually in the presence of the elusive Gennai. But to be honest, she just wanted to believe Taichi. If he said he was going to do something, he'd do it. In his own time. Whenever that might be. She preferred that, at least, to the other option, that their fearless leader was afraid.

Taichi the Ox or Possibly Moose now stood at the base of the steps leading to the outside world; it was too much of a safety hazard to open a digital gate within Gennai's domain. He cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed: "Guys, come on! Last good-byes, it's after twelve!"

Miyako bent to her knees and swept Hawkmon up in one last hug. "Take care of yourself, okay?"

"Take care of yourself, old girl." He nuzzled her neck. "Don't forget Gennai's warning about the Dark Spores."

"Gennai said it's alright to come to Digiworld now…"

"If you drop by for a visit now and then, I would put up with it."

She rolled her eyes and kissed his beak. Next to her, Patamon's wings beat gentle puffs of air in Takeru's face, while Daisuke shook hands with Veemon. Ken raised his arm to a tree and let Wormmon crawl off his shoulder to a branch.

They had to wait a couple more minutes for Jou, who was having difficulty parting from Gomamon. But at last he emerged, red-eyed and sniffling, with his shirt half-tucked in and half-flapping behind him like a rumpled tail.

"Well, children." Hands clasped behind his back, Gennai followed them to the base of the steps. "Have a good trip."

"We're sorry we couldn't stay longer," said Taichi. Miyako thought ruefully of the pile of homework that awaited her in her room.

"Get out of here or I'll shish kebab you." Gatomon somehow still managed to look Impressive and Dangerous while she twiddled her claws at them.

"Think of me when you eat ice cream!" Agumon shouted.

"And chili fries," added Palmon.

"And cheeseburgers!" piped in Veemon.

"At least mention some vegetables or we'll die from malnutrition," Iori shouted back.

Laughing, the Chosen ascended the steps to the world above.

* * *

** 08.17.2006**

** THURS**

Yamato found what he was looking for scrawled on a coffee-stained scrap of notebook paper that was crushed inside his music binder. Some of the chords were smudged beyond recognition, but he figured he could remember them, and if not he'd improvise. It felt good to strum something easy to play, easy on the ears. His acoustic could use the workout anyway.

_'Almost heaven,  
West Virginia,  
Blue Ridge Mountains,  
Shenandoah River'_

The connection he felt with this song bemused him, since West Virginia and the Shenandoah were barely more than pushpins in a map to him. Once he'd googled for pictures, but as he scanned image after image of roaring rapids and weathered peaks, the glare on the screen left him feeling remote, passive. Worse than an observer. Just a guy in his dad's rolling chair stooped over a computer.

But the pictures reminded him of Shimane. Which was odd in itself, that a song about homecoming would make him miss a place he only ever saw for a couple weeks in summer. Shimane was a cluster of forests and mountains and rivers, but so was most of Japan outside of Tokyo. He'd even set his sights on Northern Tohoku for his next climbing expedition. And yet…

_G, D, E minor, C, back to G…_

_'Country roads,  
take me home  
to the place  
I belong'_

Maybe he shouldn't have skipped his usual visit to Grandma Kinu.

"What are you playing?" Yutaka came into the garage scratching his chest and threw a balled up towel into a basket. "John Denver, really? Thought you were cool, Ishida."

"I think this is what's called premature aging," Akira smirked from the ratty couch.

"A guy can't appreciate an oldie and be young and hip at the same time?"

"On principle I'd say sure he can, but on the other hand, you just used the phrase 'young and hip' unironically."

"Admit it, you've been lying to us." Yutaka flung himself over the back of the couch and hung there, his sweat-soaked tank top drooping to expose his tanned stomach. "You're really fifty years old and balding. Give me the number of your plastic surgeon."

Yamato rolled his eyes. "The hell do you want plastic surgery for?"

"Come on, Yamato. I know _you'd_ do me, but you have no standards. I got hot studs to impress."

"Not that you two aren't riveting," interrupted Akira, "but shouldn't we, you know, rehearse? Considering we've got a show coming up and we totally blew our chance in Yoyogi."

Fighting back a sigh, Yamato got up to return the acoustic to its case. He wondered how long they were going to hold it over him for being a no-show at Yoyogi last weekend. He wished he could just tell them the truth: _'I would have been there but I had to save the world.'_ Instead he'd tried to revamp it as best he could so that they'd understand. Taichi was in a jam, he couldn't just leave him to struggle on his own, he was his best friend. To their credit, his band mates got that. They were still pissed, though.

"Hey, I'm ready whenever you guys are. Wait, crap, I have to restring my baby," Yutaka cried, jumping up.

"Is Takashi even here?" Akira asked.

Yamato jerked a thumb over his shoulder to where Takashi had spread out a burger and fries over an amp. Akira groaned.

"Takashi! Why do I always have to tell you the amp is not a table!"

Takashi ignored him and studiously chewed his burger.

Suddenly restless, Yamato decided he couldn't take this anymore. Akira looked about to set off a minor explosion. "Lunch is a good idea," he broke in first. "I'll make a food run while Yutaka's fixing his guitar. Akira, could you tune mine for me?"

By then he'd already made it outside. Any protest Akira might have had died when Yamato made it clear it was futile to fight him on this. "I'll get you a fish burger," he called back. His friend pursed his lips. Yamato heard Yutaka giggling from inside the garage ("It's her G string that snapped, hahaha!") and picked up his pace.

Tokyo was still a sweltering mess, and the heat didn't seem likely to let up for a while. As he strode down the sidewalk to the nearest burger joint, Yamato wished he'd thought to grab a hat. He wasn't sure he actually owned a hat. He probably should. Under direct sunlight his skin shriveled up like bacon.

As he passed an Italian restaurant at Shiria-mae, he stopped to check the traffic signal and found himself face to face with Taichi.

Clearly on his way home from morning soccer practice at the high school, Taichi hadn't bothered to change out of his green and blue uniform. A towel hung around his neck, his duffel over one arm, and he was in the middle of taking a gulp from his water bottle. When he spotted Yamato, he stopped and stared like some skittish wild animal, the bottle still tipped toward his mouth.

"You're home early," Yamato remarked, unable to keep a chill out of his voice. _You're not mad at him,_ he reminded himself. _Yeah, he's stupid, but that's not exactly news._

"What are you talking about? It's two o'clock. I'm actually late." Taichi fumbled to return the water bottle to its pouch on the duffel. "Stayed after to wipe down the balls."

"Isn't that first year work?"

"I like the first years."

That was probably true, but Yamato doubted it was the real reason. "Heard you haven't been home much the past few days," he said. Heard from practically every Chosen after Taichi'd turned up at their door looking for someone to eat at this new pizza place with him, to play Mario Kart, to try every flavor of shaved ice at the stand by the beach, even the brown stuff dubiously labeled "chocolate." The only ones who hadn't seen much of him seemed to be Hikari and his mother, and Yamato himself.

"Yeah, been busy," Taichi nodded as he _casually_ shifted the duffel's weight to his other shoulder, then _casually_ bared his teeth in a grin. "Can you believe this is our last summer break as high schoolers? I don't even want to think about the college entrance exams."

_You big faker._ But Yamato didn't need Taichi to tell him the truth. He already knew it. "Look, if you don't want to talk about all that, I'll stop bugging you about it. Just don't cut me off, not now."

Taichi's gaze flicked to the side. "What do you mean, 'all that'?"

"You know what I mean. You don't want to think about the future, so you surround yourself with people who think you've got it together so they can distract you, and you avoid those of us who won't just let you pretend everything is fine."

He didn't respond.

"Have you even thought about what your sister's going through, worrying about you while you push her away?"

"Yamato, I…" Taichi's façade crumbled; the look beneath was devastated. "There's no point in talking about it, or even thinking about it," he said miserably. "We have no new information, nothing's going to change. I'm staying out of Digiworld, isn't that good enough? Do I have to be reminded all the time that at any moment I could disappear, just completely _vanish?_ So what if I want to pretend everything's the same as it's always been? Curling up into a ball and crying because _woe is me,_ I drew the short stick in life hasn't gotten me anywhere so far."

Once his tirade was over he stood with his arms crossed, tense as a cord stretched to its limit, radiating anger. And underneath, hurt. Yamato felt his heart reach out. He wanted to… squeeze his friend's arm or something, show his solidarity in a more effective way than words.

But somehow he could only say, "I know, I know you're trying," which was so far from Good Enough, at a time when even Good Enough wasn't good enough. What was wrong? After Gennai first told them about what was really happening to Taichi, he hadn't hesitated to stick by his side, a standing offer to whatever support he needed, judgment-free. Just a few days ago, he'd rescued Taichi from a cave full of fire and monsters out of _Doctor Who,_ and Taichi saved Garurumon.

He hated himself, sometimes. Hated this petty anger. How one nagging little hurt could keep him from acting like the friend he wanted to be. But it did hurt. The secret room, the vial – if Taichi didn't want to get all up in Gennai's whiskers that was _fine,_ Yamato would have been more than willing to go in his place, and he'd have brought barbering shears. But Taichi in his mulish way wouldn't let anyone else take care of what he saw as his job, even if he didn't actually intend to do said job. Besides, he said, Gennai wouldn't be Gennai without his moustache.

It hurt that his friend could so easily write off Yamato's concerns as paranoia.

"It just seems like," _Stop, stop you idiot, when the incline is slippery you don't pick the muddiest route, _"you complain about not knowing anything new, but when you get the chance to actually learn something, you don't follow up." More bitterness came through than he meant.

A muscle worked in Taichi's jaw. "That room, you mean? I said I'd talk to him about it, didn't I?" he snapped. "Just haven't done it yet."

"And when were you planning on doing it, considering you're not supposed to use the Gates?"

_"GOD would everyone stop harping on how I can't use the stupid Gates!"_

Fuming, Taichi drove his fist into his duffel.

Yamato schooled his expression to be blank and raised an eyebrow. "Feel better?"

_"No,_ you asshole," Taichi snarled. "Why don't you get why I don't want to do it? He's our friend and our guide, not to mention my only hope for not spending the rest of my life as a Tamagotchi."

"You're scared of what you might find out, that's why you don't want to do it. Or that it might be another dead end."

"Yamato, when have you _ever_ known me to avoid something because I'm scared?"

"Come on, Taichi, you're great in a crisis, but what's the real reason you haven't dated anyone since Touge Shioka in first year?"

Taichi's eyes narrowed. In one swift movement he whipped the towel from around his neck and wiped his face, then marched briskly away, toward home. Who did he take him for? Yamato grabbed his shoulder and he wheeled around.

"You know it's Gennai who made you like this," Yamato started in before Taichi could yell at him. "Our 'friend and guide' told you to give up. I don't care what he's done for us in the past, that is _shit._ Tell me you know it's shit."

"That one coffee is made from beans that weasels shit, and people pay through the nose for it."

When people got angry they counted to ten, to calm themselves down before they grabbed the nearest blunt object and knocked someone's head in. Yamato shut his eyes and counted. Shoving his bookbag into Taichi's face had done nothing to fix him before.

"I'd be some kind of narcissist if I thought I was too good for weasel shit coffee."

However there's always a first time.

_"Mmph"_ went Taichi – _"Whomp"_ went his duffel bag – _Should try counting to fifteen next time,_ thought Yamato – and Taichi hit the sidewalk but bounced up instantly like a rubber ball from a coin machine, his closed fist drawn back, rage rolling off of him –

An arm shot between them and intercepted his swing. "Whoa, hold up, is that any way for the captain of the Sanou High soccer team to behave?" said a tallish, twig-thin man who wore a khaki suit and tie in flagrant defiance of the heat. Yamato couldn't believe it. It was Komori Akio, the Teenage Wolves' agent.

The intrusion surprised the fight out of Taichi, or maybe it was the reminder that he'd be kicked off the soccer team if he got caught in a brawl. At any rate, he relaxed his fingers, but his breaths still came fast.

"Long time no see, Taichi-kun," Komori said in his smooth-as-butter voice. Taichi gave a curt nod, glaring daggers into Yamato all the while. "Yamato, good. I was just on my way to drop in on your rehearsal."

Yamato flushed. "We were just taking a lunch break. I'm supposed to bring burgers."

"Great timing, then. I'll drive you, if you're finished here."

_And you are finished here,_ the air around him seemed to say – for a twig, Komori had a surprisingly effective way of throwing his weight around. It was particularly awful that instant, because for once Yamato wanted to let Taichi punch him, and after a good barbaric tussle they'd both have aired their grievances, or at least their knuckles would be too bruised to continue. Then they'd agree to a truce, shoulder their bags, and go home arm in arm singing about the sadomasochistic joys of friendship.

A shiny red mark had blossomed on the side of Taichi's head. Between that and the stitches on his chin he made a Picassian picture, somewhere between "tough guy" and "ginger root."

With one last look for Yamato, Taichi reached for his duffel. "I was just leaving anyway," he said to Komori.

"Take care of yourself, Taichi-kun." Komori waved as Taichi stomped past. "He's charming today," he said to Yamato. "Will you tell me if I ask why you were fighting?"

"He's Snorlax on Route 12." _Busybody agent._

Komori nodded. "That would do it. Shall we go?"

* * *

Komori drove a sleek white Honda s2000, which secretly impressed Yamato at first, until he slid inside and saw the leather seats baking in the sun. The heat seared his legs right through his jeans.

His dad's car tended to double as Hiroaki's closet – clothes strewn over the back seats and the dashboard, the glove compartment overflowing with empty gum wrappers, extra tubs of cream from Starbucks, bills and junk mail and scraps of paper. He'd ignored all of Yamato's very well reasoned objections to the fuzzy orange dice his dad wanted to hang from the rearview mirror, and decided to spite Yamato further by adding an ornament of a hapless fisherman who'd managed to hook his own underwear.

There was a distinct lack of fuzzy dice or boxer-baring fishermen in Komori's car. Yamato lifted a hand to roll down the window.

"Ah, don't," Komori commanded. Yamato paused and looked at him. "AC," Komori explained. "Besides, I don't want your fingerprints getting on everything."

Yamato shrugged. A dozen quips came to mind, but they were all things his friends would say, not him. He felt silly driving a total of two blocks in a souped up roadster for fast food, grumpy about not fighting with Taichi. He was silly, grumpy, and his bangs kept sticking to his forehead.

"How have you been, Yamato? We haven't had much chance to talk since the commercial shoot." Yamato tried not to go too bug-eyed when Komori put on a glove before adjusting the mirror. "Which went great, by the way. You're magic on camera."

"You're welcome," Yamato said.

Komori lifted a brow, a grin tugging at one corner of his mouth. "And sales of the second single are higher than the first. You should be proud. You've worked hard these last couple years."

He had, they all had. Schoolwork, sports, holidays, all came second after dedication to the band. Sometimes he missed the way they'd goofed around when they only ever cluttered up Akira's garage. Then he remembered they'd never been a garage band, not _really._ Not with Yamato's dad getting them gigs through his connections, Akira's parents footing much of their expenses. Not when Yamato wanted it, the whole deal. It was easy to get swept up in the momentum. He'd had his sights fixed on stardom from the beginning – concerts, national tours, his songs playing in karaoke bars.

Then again, it was that raw garage band sound that piqued Komori's interest in them in the first place. "You know that overplayed song by the Surfaris," he'd said the day he offered, as he peered at each of their sweaty, greasy, disbelieving faces, to be their agent, "the one that turns up in every movie about California and bleach blond surfers known to man – 'Wipe Out,' that one? That was just them jamming, kids having a ball. Wilson's drum solo is a cadence from his high school marching band. I might be sick of the song, but there's nothing like pure good fun to make a hit."

Komori put a lot of effort into them. Before long their days of performing in the school gymnasium met a quick and clean end. They'd managed two singles and one tour so far. He really should have been there for Yoyogi.

Yoyogi, Shimane… Odaiba. Gabumon.

"Got a headache?" Komori asked as Yamato bent over and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Just a lot to think about."

"Lots on your mind, I understand. No one said all this would be easy. You're still in high school, that's already plenty on your plate. But you know, I think it's time for another tour."

Yamato glanced up. "Another tour?"

"Why not? It's almost a year since your last one, and like I said, your singles are doing well. The commercial will be out before long. You guys want to be in the public eye every day, all week. I can get you better venues this time. Nicer hotels too, as long as you promise to keep Yutaka from prank calling the front desk pretending to be a porn star."

Although he did not think he could keep that promise, Yamato nodded. "Are you thinking during winter break?"

"Yeah, and I'm gonna cram in as many local gigs for you as I can during the fall. I'll book you guys for entire weekends whenever I can swing it. You'll be thoroughly exhausted, but trust me, it'll be worth it."

Yamato didn't reply, but his heart sank. With college entrance exams looming on the horizon, plus all the chaos with Digiworld and Taichi, the thought of being thoroughly exhausted is itself thoroughly exhausting. Was it even physically possible to save the world, star in a band, and graduate high school? Without also being Dazzler, as there was a shortage of sequined Diana Ross catsuits in Yamato's wardrobe.

And another tour during winter break would mean three weeks trapped in a cramped van with Yutaka, Akira, and Takashi, who it was true were his friends as well as his bandmates, and the people he spent the most time with nowadays. But put them in close quarters with limited air flow, Yutaka and Akira's arguing growing louder and more banshee-like by the second (while in the back Takashi snored away on top of someone's suitcase), and friendship quickly degenerated into "I Want To Smash This Twinkie Up Your Nose." Even now he wasn't sure how he'd survived the last tour. Somehow he'd tapped into the reserves of patience he drew from whenever he had to deal with his mom (which pretty much amounted to lying though his teeth – "No, Mom, I would _never_ wear the same pair of underpants two days in the row. I do laundry like clockwork"). But the effort had cost him much and Yamato wasn't ready to put himself through that again, not for fame or glory.

But he was pretty sure he _should _be happier about this, and that worried him. And judging by his agent's sidelong look, Komori also had noticed Yamato wasn't exactly bubbling over with excitement.

"This is a good thing, isn't it?" he stated more than asked. "This is what you wanted."

"Yeah," Yamato hurried to reply, "yeah, absolutely, it is."

"Have you thought any more about what we talked about during the last tour?"

"About me and the guys getting an apartment together?" Yamato inwardly cringed, but forced himself to keep a straight face. When Komori made the initial suggestion, during a success party in a noisy pizzeria in Chiba, Yamato pretended not to hear him. When he brought it up again in the hotel lobby, all he could do was nod with a kind of faint rush in his ears like a burst pipeline. They'd promised to consider it. Yutaka, for one, liked the idea. Akira and Takashi were probably indifferent.

As for Yamato, it was true he'd been feeling cooped up and restless. The thought of living on his own shouldn't hold as much appeal to him as it did, he thought, since his dad came home with all the regularity of the tooth fairy and he had the place to himself six nights out of seven. Where he'd move out of wasn't the problem. With whom he'd move in was.

From the time he was eight, it'd just been him and his dad. All five Wolves, in one cramped apartment? Diving up chores, sharing a room, watching TV around the _kotatsu?_ The image in his mind was so blissfully domestic he almost laughed.

Then there was also Komori's reason for trying to herd them all into one little convenient pasture to keep in mind. He thought they were too spread out. Not just spatially, in their attitudes toward the band too. If their aim was Tokyo Dome, they needed to be of one mind (slimy with filth though the concept of sharing a mind with Yutaka made him feel), or so Komori said. Komori was definitely shrewd – he might even be right. But all this rang of manipulation, and Yamato hated to be bossed around.

"We haven't really discussed it," Yamato admitted, treading cautiously as if he expected a sinkhole to appear at any moment. "That's not the sort of thing high school kids do very much, after all."

"There are students who would have to travel long distance for school that get their own places nearby," said Komori.

"But we all live in Tokyo."

"It's still something you could do, for the sake of the band. Unless you _want_ the public to continue thinking of you as 'those high school _kids_ who certainly made an effort, yes, not a bad showing for _kids.'"_

Yamato squeezed his nose again.

Komori's tone took on a sharp edge so quickly that Yamato almost flinched. "I'm suggesting this primarily for you, Yamato." They pulled into a spot in front of the restaurant, but he made no move to open the door. Impatient fingers drummed on the steering wheel. "You're the leading man here. You guys have a lot of promise – otherwise I wouldn't be here. Still, your hold on the future is more tenuous than you seem to know. There is no band without you. But whenever we're at a gig, or on the road, you seem like you're far away."

Akira's words from two weeks ago echoed back: _This band can't afford to lose you._ He hadn't taken it to heart much then, but now Komori was saying the same thing.

"Are you listening? You can't _be _far away. I don't know what you've got distracting you so much, but let me give you some advice: dump it. Clubbing, alcohol, whatever, just dump it. Dump her, if it's a girl. Do whatever you need to do so when you're with us, you're not somewhere else in your head. And do it before you lose the good thing you've got going here."

Okay, he had not got into the car with Komori for a lecture. Yamato's bangs flew as he gave his head a vigorous shake. "Come on, I'm _not_ that important. It's not like I'm Freddie Mercury. Akira's the most organized, he's the only one who knows what we've got going on day by day. And Yutaka and Takashi wouldn't drop the band just because I did."

"Yes, you are," Komori said pointedly, "and yes, they would."

That couldn't be true. He'd _never_ wanted that kind of responsibility. He just wanted to make a living using his guitar, that was it.

"How can you expect me to just _dump_ things?" he cried. "The band's not the only thing that matters." Like the best friend who, Yamato now realized, Komori had _chased off_ for distracting their "leading man."

"At this crucial stage, it should be," Komori said cryptically.

For an icy moment, Yamato stared at him. Then he kicked the passenger door open and stormed out.

"Hey –" Komori exclaimed in shock, "what are you – wait a minute, Yamato –"

But Yamato wouldn't wait. The burgers were long forgotten. He picked a direction and bolted, disconcerted by the prospect that this might make him a diva, but he brushed it aside. Just being around Komori made him claustrophobic. He needed to run away.

* * *

** 08.18.2006**

** FRI**

"Oniichan?"

Hikari leaned over the back of the couch. Her brother lounged on the floor by the window like an indolent housecat with a full belly of tuna. The actual feline of the family had stretched herself over the curve of his back and hung like a limp rag. A small oscillating fan sat directly in front of them, blowing fresh air from outside on their overheated bodies.

When she called, Taichi cracked open an eye. _"Mmh_what?"

"Um," Hikari swallowed. Now that she'd finally approached him, she wasn't sure what to say. It was rare enough this week that he was even home. Hikari assumed his bad mood from yesterday's fight with Yamato hadn't dissipated. All the things she'd wanted to say to him while he avoided her wouldn't go over any easier thanks to that.

She tried again. "Um, Miyako-san and I are going to visit the Fuji TV building."

He lifted his head from his arms. "Why? We're all going there this weekend for our anniversary."

"Yeah, I know." She blushed. "But it turns out Gennai's got something for Gatomon to do on that day. So we're going to go now too, so she can come. It's a very important time to her, after all."

"Oh, okay," Taichi said, trying to shrug while working as few muscles as possible. Maybe he'd actually liquefied and was barely retaining his shape through force of will. "I'll tell Mom if you're not home by dinner."

"Actually, I was thinking you might want to come with us?"

_"Nngh, _Hikaaaari," he moaned. "Do I look like I can go anywhere right now? My legs are made of Jell-o. If ninjas dropped from the ceiling with orders to kill me they would find their work both easy and jiggly in a sort of off-putting way."

"I'll buy you ice cream." Bribery tended to work on her brother.

"Why do you want me to go? I can't contribute anything to discussions about the various types of 'cute' and 'hot' represented by the members of Arashi."

She giggled. "We don't _always_ talk about that. Sometimes we talk about V6." Her voiced softened a bit. "Please come? It'd mean a lot to Gatomon too. Plus you'd get to see Agumon."

Taichi heaved a sigh of longsuffering, but she could tell by the wrinkle in his brow that she'd won him over. Smiling brightly, she said, "I'll go have Gatomon call Agumon," and ran off to do just that.

The Digimon flew out of the computer in her father's study to land without ceremony in a pile of loose paper and other kind of clutter. By then Taichi had brushed his hair so that it at least stood up every _right_ direction, and sniffed out (in the most literal sense) a shirt that was tolerably clean. They slipped into their shoes, Taichi tucked the house key into his wallet, and walked out into the energy-sapping heat.

Hikari couldn't keep a skip out of her step as she walked beside her brother, thrilled that he'd decided to come with her. Certain advantages came with being his Achilles' heel.

"So when do I get this ice cream you promised me?" Taichi asked.

"Ice cream? I want ice cream." Outfitted in one of Taichi's sweatshirts, Agumon was already sweating like melting ice. It was a pretty awful disguise at that, Hikari thought, but the point was to keep people from going _"Dinosaur!"_ (or worse, _"Charmander!")_ and causing a riot in the street. If they just thought he was some unfortunate orange child going through a phase, they'd get some looks but maybe nothing more.

"We should wait until after the station," Hikari replied. "You two never grow up."

They came across Miyako and Hawkmon waiting for them near the park.

"Here, Gatomon," said Miyako once they'd joined up, and transferred a small bouquet of white lilies and powder blue delphinium into Gatomon's arms.

Gatomon peered at the bouquet with interest. She buried her nose among the flowers and took a deep whiff. Her eyes shone as she looked back up at Miyako. "Thanks, they're beautiful."

"No problem. I didn't want anything too bright. Though it's not like I knew Wizardmon. Maybe he'd prefer bright colors…"

"These are perfect," Hikari said with a smile. "Give them to me, Gatomon, I'll carry them as we walk."

"Hello, nice to see you too, Miyako-chan," Taichi said with a smirk.

Miyako blushed. "Well, it's not like I haven't seen you in weeks or anything," she retorted. Taichi laughed and gave her ponytail a tug; she tore after him squawking, and Hikari stifled a giggle.

The other two Digimon at least were easier to conceal than Agumon. Hawkmon soared above them like any other bird, and Gatomon slinked along at Hikari's side, doing her best, if insulting, impression of Miko. It helped that the heat kept most people inside.

Fuji TV headquarters' globe-shaped observation room gleamed in the late afternoon sunlight. They paid the entrance fee at a booth near the gate, then crowded into the elevator that would take them to the topmost floor. At the 25th floor, the elevator stopped and the shuffled out into the observation room.

Windows stretched across the round room in a sweeping panorama of the Daiba area. The most remarkable view was that of the Rainbow Bridge, the entire length of which could be seen reaching across the Odaiba waterfront to mainland Tokyo.

The view they were interested in was on the surface not nearly so impressive. Cradling the flowers in her arms, Gatomon approached the far left window that had once been reconstructed after monsters took a bite out of it. She laid the bouquet on the ground and stood there for a while. Hikari and the rest hung back, falling into a solemn silence. Even after leaving Myotismon's service, Gatomon had never really shaken that inward bent of hers. She opened up to Hikari, but every now and then her defenses were just too high. She needed time alone to let herself feel, and to reorient herself. Visiting Wizardmon's place of death every August had become such a fixture in her life that Hikari would honestly have been worried for her if she hadn't been able to come at all thanks to the chaos in Digiworld.

And Gatomon wasn't the only one who would feel backwards and wrong without this tradition. Every year in this place, feelings Hikari thought she'd gotten over long ago came flooding back. She recalled the terror of standing before Myotismon while he clutched Gatomon in one hand and cast that hideous grin on her. She remembered panicking as the battle raged in the sky and all around her, while her brother was trapped on the opposite end of the building. And then Wizardmon threw himself in front of her and took Myotismon's attack himself. She'd been a child then, and had no way to pay him back for such a sacrifice. Not that she ever could.

She felt an arm encircle her shoulders and give her a gentle squeeze. "I've got to step out for a minute," Taichi murmured in her ear. "Nature calls. Will you be alright?"

She nodded.

He squeezed her again, then left to search out the rest rooms, Agumon trailing after him. Miyako took a seat on the floor and propped her chin up in her hands. Knowing Gatomon would likely be a while, Hikari settled down next to her to wait.

"Oniichan's been avoiding me," she whispered to her friend after a glance behind her to make sure he was out of earshot.

Miyako's brow quirked. "How do you know?"

"How do you ever know when someone's avoiding you?"

"Well, sure, but if he hasn't been around much, that doesn't have to mean he's avoiding you, does it? Maybe he's just busy."

"He's not," Hikari countered stubbornly.

Miyako sighed. "Maybe it has something to do with what happened at Gennai's place."

That piqued her interest. "Something happened at Gennai's?"

A dusky, almost predatory look fell over Miyako's face. "I'm not really supposed to tell you," she said in the coquettish tone of someone who was most certainly going to tell you. "Taichi-san basically said he wouldn't make me promise not to tell, but he'd prefer it if I didn't. But _you_ should know. You're in closest proximity to him – well, until recently, at least."

"Tell me," Hikari demanded.

"Okay, so, the night we slept at Gennai's, Yamato-san found a room, and something inside it scared the wits right out of him. But he couldn't find the room the next day. Supposedly it moves around."

"What, like the Room of Requirement in _Harry Potter?"_

"I guess something like that? Anyway, I don't know the details, but Yamato-san really, _really_ wanted Taichi-san to talk to Gennai about it. Taichi-san didn't want to, but finally he said he would make the time. He didn't, though. They had another fight and he never went to talk to Gennai. Yamato-san called him an ox."

_Yamato-san needs to work on his insults._ "Wait, why was Yamato-san so hung up on that room?" she asked, biting her lip. She was not pleased, not pleased that her brother had become such a devoted secret keeper. Any doubts that remained in her mind that he'd been avoiding her fled in an instant.

"Like I said, I don't know the details. They never meant for me to overhear them. I think they were so busy trying to out-macho each other that they forgot I was in the room." Miyako rolled her eyes.

"There was one thing," Hawkmon broke in, looking pensive. He exchanged a brief look with Miyako. "Nothing specific, but Yamato made it clear that he believed whatever was in that room was somehow related to Taichi."

"That makes no sense," Hikari argued. "If that were the case Oniichan would definitely confront Gennai about it."

"Be that as it may –"

_BOOM_

The whole room rocked. The flowers tumbled out of the bouquet and scattered on the floor.

"What was that?!" Hikari cried, removing her hands from her ears.

"I think it was a 'boom,'" answered Miyako with a quiver in her voice.

"Hikari –" Gatomon bounded over, all business. "I sense something –"

She was interrupted by another _BOOM,_ this one not as loud as the last, but several souvenirs rattled off shelves as the station shook again.

Then the room went dark. Not just the room. Outside, the windows themselves, clouded over with pitch black. Hikari groped around for Miyako's hand, heart hammering in her chest.

Gatomon hissed. _"Something is here."_

Yes, something was there, but where? Where? Whatever it was, it had the advantage of them – if they couldn't _see_ it –

_Up. Look up_

Hikari tipped her head back and peered at the ceiling.

She caught a glimpse of narrow red eyes, just before a mercilessly swift claw descended and knocked her off her feet.

* * *

**Chapter Notes:**

1] _seiza:_ Traditional form of sitting during tea ceremony etc., on your knees with your feet tucked together.

2.] _Face of Boe:_ Giant alien face from _Doctor Who._ Told you I'd get it in there ;)

3] _Once she'd done some mixing for his band:_ In episode 29, Miyako reveals that she helps synch music for Yamato's band (with Koushirou, I think). It's not that farfetched, upstart garage band types (though Yamato's band always seems peculiarly popular) rely on friends for those extra skills a lot, I'm sure. Also, on one of the Digimon drama CDs, "Spring 2003," she has an adorable little monologue in which she jokes about the size of her breasts and mentions having done some mixing. The esteemed Onkei-kun did a translation if you care to Google it.

4] _Snorlax… Poké flute:_ If you've ever played the Pokemon games (I've only played Yellow and that was when I was ten and Gameboys were black and white), you groaned in distress when you saw this.

4] _freakishly tall:_ My Miyako is in a constant volley from one extreme to the other: overflowing with optimism to serious insecurity. (Aren't they all to some extent.) And in my headcanon, she's also the tallest girl in her family and in her class (I put her at 5'6" – 5'7," which may not seem tall to you but there aren't so many girls of that height in Japan). There is nothing freakish about being a tall girl – but Miyako believes there is. And she's smart enough to _know_ that's insecurity and superficial societal expectations talking, so then she thinks she's bad for thinking that way. And so the cycle of insecurity and guilt continues. (Miyako is high school age me!) But she will cheer up and discover how beautiful she is. I believe in her :)

5] _That one coffee:_ He's referring to kopi luwak coffee, made by civets (not weasels) who eat coffee beans, which come out pretty much whole in their waste. The beans are cleaned before being ground into coffee, and at any rate for some reason people like it better after a civet's eaten it. Maybe just so they can say they did.

6] _Dazzler:_ The Marvel Comics character who's sometimes an X-man.

7] _kotatsu:_ An electric blanket spread over a low table which you sit under to keep warm in winter.

8] _Tokyo Dome:_ A famous, tricked out concert hall pretty much every famous performer books at some point.

9] _Arashi/ V6:_ A mega popular boy band, and another popular boy band.

_I suppose the whole manipulative bastard agent thing is cliché, but whatever, it's not that important to the story. And it's not like he's evil. Plus he doesn't know about the whole superhero in another world thing. I'm sure he'd be more understanding if he knew Yamato had a real overgrown, teenage wolf for a defender. Yamato is yet another Stark of Winterfell._

_Thank you for reading! And for all your amazing comments! I would shower you all with alpacas if only I had the means._


	16. The Children Led By Desire

_A/N: Lookity-look! A new chapter! Wow, that didn't take long! Shhh! Don't say that, you'll jinx it! Never look a gift horse in the mouth! … Why are there so many idioms about horses?_

* * *

**Chapter Sixteen**

**The Children Led By Desire**

"'_Krishna, what makes a person commit evil against his own will, as if compelled by force?'  
_'_It is desire and anger, arising from nature's quality of passion; know it here as the enemy, voracious and very evil!'"  
- __Arjuna and Krishna, _The Bhagavad-Gita

**08.18.2006**

** FRI**

But as the claw parted Hikari from the ground, she realized it wasn't a claw at all. The finger-like protrusions were soft and doughy, barely managing to send Hikari flopping over in an inelegant somersault before it was retracted. The rest of the monster's body was just as anomalous: the outline of serrated teeth, the lash of a great tail, all seemed vague and unreal. Its form was reminiscent of a Devidramon, but unfinished, like clay taking shape on a wheel.

Even so, an enemy was an enemy. Whatever this creature was, it didn't belong in the human world. Hikari whipped out her digivice. "Gatomon!" she shouted. Against dark, they needed light.

As Angewomon materialized in an iridescent swirl, the pitch blackness that had fallen over the Fuji TV observation deck began to drain away, funneling into the body of the monster. As it absorbed the sinister fog, the monster's features sharpened. Hikari did not need anyone to tell her that was a very bad sign.

Across the room, a door slammed open. "Hikari!" cried Taichi, racing toward them with Agumon. Hikari called out to her partner:

"Now, Angewomon!"

With practiced hands, Angewomon cocked her bow and released. The Celestial Arrow burrowed into the juncture between the monster's left shoulder and clavicle. Hikari expected a howl half filled with pain, half with rage, but instead what came out was a nightmarish whining, almost pathetic, in a way, like a dog's whimper. Then the monster doubled over backward, disintegrating bit by bit, and was gone before it hit the floor.

Sunlight streamed through the windows unobstructed once again. Hikari looked around and spotted Miyako wearing a look of panic, but on her feet. Halsemon stood next to her, still in battle position.

After a few moments of silence as they waited to see if the monster was really gone, Miyako slouched back and put a hand to her forehead. "What was that?" she gasped. "It looked like a Digimon, but –"

"But all blurry, like a picture out of focus," Hikari finished. "I want to call it a Devidramon, but I really couldn't tell."

"At least it was an easy fight," Angewomon said.

"Where did it come from?" Taichi wandered toward them with his head tilted back as if he expected the hidden portal to fall out of the ceiling tiles.

They exchanged puzzled looks. "Nobody saw?" Taichi asked with frustration.

"It just appeared out of thin air," Miyako replied with a shrug.

"You're forgetting the dark atmosphere that came with it," Halsemon reminded her, a bit sulky. Hikari supposed he wasn't too happy that Angewomon stole his chance to fight.

"That's right – there were all those dark clouds, inside and outside – it absorbed them into its body –"

"You sensed something right at the start, didn't you, Angewomon?" Hikari asked her partner.

Nodding, Angewomon's head shifted minutely toward the broken flower arrangement, the sole casualty of the very one-sided battle. "Yes, it absolutely used dark energy, though Digimon or not I can't be sure. But it didn't fully materialize – it was as if it got caught between dimensions."

"There's never been a Gate here," Hikari protested.

"I think there might be one now," Taichi murmured thoughtfully.

They all peered at him, waiting for him to elaborate. He did a remarkable impression of Koushirou sometimes, Hikari thought, with his contemplative brow crimped and a hand wrapped around his chin. After a minute he raised his head, but avoided looking at them. "It must be new," he said slowly, "or our digivices would have reacted to it before. _Very _new, as in the monster must have come through the instant it opened wide enough."

"Right when we happened to be here too," added Agumon.

"I wonder if this is similar to the Digimon who appeared due to the dimensional distortions seven years ago?"

"But, Oniichan," Hikari interrupted, "how do you know? It's not like we've had any issues with distortions lately. Doesn't it seem more likely that the monster came out of one of the already established Gates that we know are in flux, and tracked us down?"

"It would, except…" To her surprise, a flicker of shame crossed her brother's face. "I lied before," he said with a sigh. "I didn't go to the bathroom, I left because I felt myself winking out again."

"Winking out – you mean digitizing?" Hikari stared at him in alarm.

"Yeah," he admitted sheepishly. "At first it only happened when I was near a Digital Gate or when one opened, but since we came back from Gennai's that hasn't always been the case. That's why it didn't occur to me when just now – I felt it coming on, so I went to find a place to sit and wait it out."

So the visit to Digiworld had made his condition worse after all, just like Gennai said it would. They only came home a few days ago, but in that time Taichi had gotten so used to "winking out" that he considered it mundane. Otherwise he would have assumed worst-case scenario, even though they were in their world, in a place where there had never been a dimensional rip, with no reason to expect an attack. That a Gate had opened here, apparently of its own volition, that they'd been attacked by an unknown monster – those problems were huge, but Hikari couldn't bring herself to care. Like a chant, the words _He didn't tell me, he didn't tell me_ looped ruthlessly through her head.

She knew one thing for sure, though. "We have to get you out of here," she said, taking hold of his arm. "If there's a Gate, you can't be near it."

"Wait a second, calm down." Taichi refused to budge as she tugged at him. "Just look at your Digivice – the Gate's _gone._ For whatever reason, it was temporary, maybe only there so that one creature could come through. At any rate, I'm just as safe here as anywhere else."

"Oniichan," she burst out, _"please!"_

The urgency in her voice seemed to surprise him, because whatever excuses he had left died then and there. He let out a resigned sigh, but allowed her to steer him toward the elevator, the others (Gatomon and Hawkmon reverted to their usual forms) chasing after them.

Outside the sun was setting. Despite the sticky heat, Hikari refused to let go of Taichi's arm. They stumbled in an awkward weave of arms and legs out the front gate, back towards Shiria-Mae. Suddenly Miyako let out a shout.

"Guys, there's someone over here!"

Hikari and Taichi stopped and looked back. "You guys make yourselves scarce," Taichi instructed their partners, who dove into some neighboring bushes. Hawkmon circled high above them.

Miyako knelt in the shade of an ash tree, her back to them. As they approached, Hikari gasped. Wrapped in Miyako's arms lay a thin girl with shoulder length hair pulled back in a ponytail. The girl's eyes were closed and her breaths came short and fast. She looked a year or two younger than Hikari.

"I know that uniform. She's from Chikamatsu-higashi Junior High." Taichi crouched and laid a hand gently on the girl's brow. "Damn, she's burning up."

"Heatstroke?" asked Miyako.

"Let's get her somewhere with air conditioning, quick."

He scooped her into his arms and glanced around, finally settling on a nearby Lawson's convenience store across the street. They were still closer to Fuji TV than Hikari would have liked, but her brother moved so fast and with such purpose that she might as well have tried to direct a missile. Torn between concern for the girl and worry over her brother's state, all she could do was try to keep up and console herself with promises to pick his mind later.

The sole cashier at the Lawson's looked stunned by their entrance, but Taichi waved her qualms aside. "She's alright. Her blood pressure's low," he said. "Can you get us a bottle of water and something with sugar? Hikari, my wallet's in my back pocket."

"Oniichan, don't you think we should take her to the clinic?" Hikari whispered as the cashier left to bring their items.

"Look at her shirt, Hikari," he replied as all three of them settled on a bench, the girl cradled in Taichi's arms.

Hikari looked and almost jumped back up. There, clipped to the girl's shirt pocket, was a palm-sized ovoid gadget, white on purple, complete with a small screen and antenna.

_"Oh my gosh,"_ hissed Miyako. "It's a D3!"

Taichi nodded, grim-faced. "A Digital Gate, or at least a distortion of some kind, lets a monster through, and then we find one of the children with Dark Spores collapsed just outside the building. No way that's a coincidence. Her fever's already going down, so let's see if she wakes up just as easy. If not we'll go to the clinic."

_A Spore child._ Hikari's memory shot back to almost four years ago, to the children who had watched the battle with MaloMyotismon through the dimensional rip in the World of Wishes. She tried to recall which one this girl was. Back then they'd made a list of all the children's names as well as their partners', a document she felt sure Koushirou still had. But in the aftermath none of them had kept up with the Spore children's lives, other than to give them reassurances over the next year that someday they'd be permitted into Digiworld to see their partners again. Empty reassurances, it turned out. And now…

_Now their partners have been abducted, and we don't know where they are or how long they've been gone._ A wave of sadness came over her. If only they had _known._ Instead her heart constricted with regret that they hadn't taken care of these kids, though she knew they probably couldn't have made a difference. Even Gennai didn't know what had happened to those Digimon.

If she ever lost Gatomon, though…

_Who can blame Hosoda Seiki for stealing Takeru-kun's D3, if he really believed that otherwise he'd never see his partner again?_

The cashier returned with a water bottle and a bar of Meiji chocolate. Hikari uncapped the bottle and Taichi took it from her, tipping it carefully over the girl's mouth until a thin trickle wet her lips. That was all it took – the girl's face screwed up, her nose made a dramatic twitch to the right, and finally brown eyes opened. She gazed at them blankly at first. Her expression turned to one of distress as she took in the three strangers huddled around her, but she seemed to lack the energy to do more than make huge rabbit eyes at them.

"Shhh," said Taichi in the soothing voice he used when Hikari was little and woke up crying on the upper bunk after a nightmare. He helped the girl sit up on her own. "It's okay. We want to help you. I'm Taichi, and this is Miyako-chan, from Sanou High. And this is my sister Hikari, from Odaiba Jr."

He placed the water bottle in her hands as a goodwill gesture. Her fingers tightened around it as if it were all she had in the world to protect her.

"Can you tell us your name?" Taichi asked.

The girl's gaze dropped to her knees. "Rina," she answered with a quiver of her lip. "Momoji Rina. I'm a first year at Chikamatsu-higashi." She looked up with sudden boldness. "And I know who you are. You're the Chosen Children."

Hikari stiffened at the venom in her voice. Maybe she wasn't much of a rabbit after all.

"Great, Rina-chan," Taichi said cheerfully, though knowing him as well as she did, Hikari could tell he'd gone on alert. "You know us and now we know you. There's just one point left where you have the advantage. You didn't pass out from heatstroke, did you."

After a pause, she shook her head.

"Mind explaining what happened back there at the TV station?"

Rina's jaw clenched. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Save it, kiddo, we know that's a lie. Whatever you guys did, it let a monster through. Monster's gone now, because we swept the floor with its ass, but now that we've cleaned up your mess I feel like some answers."

The girl suddenly shot to her feet and pushed past them. Caught off-guard, the three Chosen all made to grab her at once, and ended up tripping over each other. The bell above the door jingled as Rina ran out into the road.

"Dammit!" Taichi snarled, the first to detangle himself and race after her.

Hikari scrabbled at the tiles. "Miyako-san –! Your elbow's jabbing me in kind of an intimate place –!"

_"Oh God_ sorry sorry sorry! Ugh oh gosh, I'm gonna bathe in disinfectant."

"She's _fast_ for a twelve-year-old!"

Their partners waiting outside had joined Taichi in his pursuit. Rina zigzagged between trees and bushes, dashing in one surprise direction after another every time Taichi closed in on her. Watching them as she ran after with Miyako huffing in her wake, Hikari was reminded of the Road Runner and poor determined Wile E. Coyote. She was too far behind to catch up by now, but it didn't matter. Rina's chances of outrunning Sanou High's ace were slim to none. As he neared her, Taichi's arm shot out and snagged her around her waist. The two of them collapsed into a patch of grass by a chicken wire fence, Rina's legs wheeling violently as Taichi tried to hold her back as gently as possible.

"You know, we are so lucky no one's around, or they'd be calling the police on us for assault," Miyako commented.

Hikari made a face. "Oniichan's penchant for drama is gonna get him in trouble someday."

"Relax," they heard Taichi cry in exasperation. "Come on, kid, I'm not trying to hurt – _ow!"_ His head flung back as she kicked him in the chin. "Hey, show some mercy! Can't you see I've got stitches?"

"Eat dirt," Rina seethed.

"See, this is the difference between kids and grown ups," Taichi said with an impish quirk of his brow. "Kids eat dirt, grown ups eat sh–"

"Oniichan!" Hikari slapped his shoulder as she made it to his side. Miyako arrived seconds later, panting.

"She kicked me, Hikari!"

"I'm going to kick you myself! She's _twelve."_

Rina glared at her. "I don't want _you_ to defend me."

"Geez, and you seemed like such a meek thing when you first woke up," Taichi grumbled, but without any malice. Hikari knew he was more frustrated with the girl than angry with her. Rina couldn't possibly be in safer hands, though she seemed unlikely to believe that.

In the end, it wasn't anything they said that got Rina to calm down, but her first sight of the Digimon. The fire in her wilted as Agumon and Gatomon took up guarding Taichi and Hikari, and Hawkmon flew to Miyako's shoulder. Her glance flitted from one to the other in rapid succession. She looked suddenly kittenish, curious but wary of traps.

_Of course,_ Hikari thought, sympathetic feelings returning. Crouching low in the grass, she gave Gatomon a small nudge in Rina's direction. Gatomon stared at her in amazement, her reluctance palpable, but even so Hikari nodded for her to go over. There was some irony in how Gatomon looked the least threatening of the three Digimon with them, when as a Champion level she was really the most powerful.

Rina pulled her legs in with a jerk as Gatomon slinked over to her, yet unease battled with awe in her eyes.

"Rina-chan," Hikari said with a smile, "meet Gatomon."

"… Hello," Gatomon said.

Rina jumped. "You're…" She licked her lips. "A Digimon?"

"I'm definitely not a housecat," Gatomon replied.

She settled down next to Rina's thigh and proceeded to wash her forelegs. For a moment Rina watched wordlessly, longing written all over her. Once her hand made a twitchy move as if to reach out, but she quickly caught it and clasped it to her chest.

Gatomon glanced at Hikari and sighed. "Pet me if you want," she said.

"Really?" After one more hesitant search of the Chosen's faces, Rina finally laid a hand on Gatomon's back. Her thumbs rubbed in rhythmic circles near the shoulder blades. She combed through Gatomon's fur from her head to the tip of her tail.

"Ooh, Gatomon's purring," Agumon whispered to Hawkmon.

"She likes you, Rina-chan," Hikari giggled, ignoring the telltale flick of her partner's ear.

A tentative smile crossed Rina's face. "Araremon had fur like that too."

"Araremon?" repeated Miyako. "Was – um, _is_ that your partner's name?"

She nodded.

"You must miss her a lot," Taichi murmured, back in Big Brother Damage Control mode. "I bet she misses you too. But you know, Rina-chan, there are bad Digimon just like there are good Digimon. Did you see the monster that attacked us at the TV station? That was definitely one of the bad ones."

"I saw it," Rina said hoarsely as she continued to card her fingers through Gatomon's fur.

"So how did it get here?"

She bit her lip. Hikari laid a hand on the girl's knee as an idea hit her. "You know Hosoda Seiki, right?" she asked. "He managed to open a Digital Gate at Shiroike campgrounds using my friend's D3, but it rebounded on him. Are you guys trying to open Gates with your own D3s now?"

"I thought none of them worked at all," said Miyako, confused.

"We're not – we –" At last releasing Gatomon, Rina buried her face in her hands.

_She's just a kid,_ Hikari thought. Barely older than she'd been when she'd found the Digi-egg of Light. "It's okay, take a breather. No one here's mad at you."

Rina's head snapped up. "We just want to go back _so bad!"_ she replied in almost a shout. "I want to see Araremon again. We never even had a chance to get to know them."

"And I would feel the same way," Taichi said. "We all would. But whatever you're doing to get to the digital world, it's dangerous. Just tell me this: have there been any more of those monsters?"

"No," Rina answered, "because I'm the first…"

"The first what?"

"Don't, Rina."

Hikari instinctively sprang to her feet at the newcomer's voice. Gathered two meters away from their little huddle was a group of kids wearing uniforms from all different schools. She counted at least ten of them, probably more. Heading the pack were a boy in tennis shorts and a pale girl with a red barrette in her long black hair. The former Hikari didn't know, but the girl could only be Kawada Noriko.

_More Spore Children._ And she recognized only a few of them. The small boy with the brown curls had to be Yoshizawa Takashi, who'd once dreamed of becoming a pro baseball player. The boy with the dark eyes and glasses was Shibata Hiroshi, their resident cartoonist. The twins, Urushibara Tsukasa and Tsuyoshi, who used to go to such lengths to make sure people could tell them apart, now wore the same hair style and school uniform. And Ikeuchi Suzuyo, one of the oldest, had bonded with Sora over their carrot red hair.

With a defiant glare for each of the Chosen, the boy strode forward and picked up Rina by her arm. "We told you to wait until we all got together," he snarled, yanking her away.

In an instant, Taichi got in front of him to block his path. "Hold on," he said in a carefully controlled tone. "No need to be rough, we're not gonna stop you. We'd like to talk, though. Whatever you're doing –"

"Is none of your business, so shove off." The boy let go out of Rina, but only to wind back his fist and slam Taichi across the chest.

"Oniichan!" Hikari cried as Taichi stumbled backwards.

To her surprise, Noriko leapt to their defense. "Naruma-san, that was uncalled for!" she cried. Two young girls, evidently friends of Rina's, rushed over to hug her and steer her toward the group.

"I'm warning you," growled the boy (Kumagai Naruma, Hikari's mind registered). "Stay out of our way."

"Love to, if you'd keep your monsters out of ours," Taichi countered.

"When stuff comes through the Gates, it's your area, isn't it?" A vicious smirk crossed Naruma's face like a gash. "You've made that pretty clear. You're basically Digiworld's trash pickers, aren't you?"

"Listen, no one here wants a fight," Taichi said (though he looked as though he might, Hikari thought). "Tell us what's going on. Maybe we can help."

"Like you helped four years ago?" shouted someone else.

"We're not the ones preventing you from going to Digiworld," Miyako put in, fingers curled as if aching for a throat to wring. "A lot's going on over there. I'm sure, someday, if you all stop being brats and wait for it to get sorted out –"

"Someday's not good enough anymore," Naruma interrupted, "and if we can get in on our own, that's what we're gonna do."

"Isn't that what got you into trouble last time?" asked Gatomon.

Naruma's gaze dropped to her level, a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. The Spore Children who weren't engaged in screaming at the Chosen had noticed the Digimon much earlier, and were staring with a mix of apprehension and, like Rina, unconcealed longing. Agumon and Hawkmon had planted themselves next to their partners, each adopting a look of childlike interest, but the muscles in their legs were coiled to pounce if defense were needed.

Gatomon returned Naruma's stare without flinching. "Four years ago you tried to open a Digital Gate without using a D3. Look how that worked out. You may want to go there, your partners may be waiting for you, this dead silence may grate on your nerves – but none of that makes it okay for you to play around with dimensions. Digiworld isn't a playground, and we aren't pets, so stop acting like your rights have been violated."

Some of the prickling energy drained from the kids as she spoke. A couple of them looked at their feet, undoubtedly recalling the hole that tore through the sky on the night Oikawa took them to the World of Wishes. Hikari didn't blame them for any of that, and neither, she was sure, did Gatomon. But her partner made a very pertinent point. Whatever means they had in mind, they were messing with someone else's world. No one had ever done that without dire consequences. Not Oikawa Yukio, not the Spore Children, not even the Chosen themselves. Until their digivices were updated to D3s, they couldn't dive at will. And half the team didn't even have those updates. Four years ago, when the Digimon Emperor's reign of terror reached its peak, Digiworld had reached out and plucked Taichi right out of school so that he could release the D3s. At that time, it had been two years since any of them had seen their partners.

And as Gennai once explained, every model of digivice held an intricate program which connected directly to both human and Digimon users. It was interference from the warp created by MetalGreymon's attack on the Dark Network-infused Etemon that was now breaking Taichi apart day by day. Even they weren't immune.

They had no right to Digiworld, even though they'd been Chosen. Even though they hadn't asked for any of this. They didn't have any rights while they were there, either. All they had, all they'd ever had, was each other.

* * *

Naruma continued to glare darts at them even after Gatomon's rebuke sent most of the other children into a troubled silence. _Kumagai Naruma,_ Taichi's brain filled in as he scrambled for the kid's stats. After recovering Takeru's D3 from Hosoda Seiki, Taichi and Koushirou sat down with Koushirou's old files on the abducted children for a review. Or, rather, Koushirou reviewed and Taichi soaked it all in for the first time. Their meeting four years ago had been brief. After Oikawa spent the last of his energy to correct the interdimensional distortions, his power plus the influence of the World of Wishes had surged through the Spore Children's Digimon. All of them digivolved to the In-training level, a few even to Rookie. It had been late. Parents waited for them at the camp, at home, at the police station. But for a while no one had moved to separate the kids from their newfound friends. For a short time, those kids who'd been so unhappy experienced indescribable joy.

And when next the kids tried to open a Gate using their own D3s, nothing had happened.

They couldn't enter, not even with the Chosen towing them along. _At least I can do that much without a D3,_ Taichi thought grimly.

Kumagai Naruma was the oldest of the group. _Shimbashi Third High School, first year. Plays varsity tennis. Partner's name is Ryudamon._ At sixteen, he stood as tall as Taichi, with longish black hair and thick eyebrows. Acne scars dotted his chin and jaws, where a beard was growing in.

He obviously hated them.

"Now you've heard it from the horse's mouth," Taichi said, resolved not to let Gatomon's efforts go to waste.

Agumon peered at him and cocked his head. "But Gatomon's not a horse?"

"… Now you've heard it from the cat's mouth. It's like she says. More than anything we want you guys to see your partners again, but not by putting lives at risk. What happened today at Fuji TV can't happen again, do you understand me?"

A few of them mumbled incoherently. Naruma's shoulders heaved with barely contained fury. _This one is a time bomb,_ Taichi realized, and schooled his face to be impassive.

"You guys have banded together, right? If you really want to do something about those D3s of yours, why not hook up with us? My friend is a whiz with gadgets. If anyone can get those things to work –"

"Not in a _million years_ am I letting any of you touch my D3!" shrieked a girl with auburn hair in shoulder-length waves.

"Ataru-san, don't start!" Noriko yelled.

"They'll destroy the D3s if we hand them over," Naruma barked at the other kids. "They want revenge for what Seiki did."

One of the girls with Rina started to cry.

"We wouldn't destroy them," Hikari insisted, horrified.

"Even Takeru-kun's over that now," said Miyako.

"Come on, Kumagai, when did we become the enemy?" Brushing past Agumon, Taichi marched towards the kids and watched in disbelief as they backed away as if he'd come at them with an ax. "I mean it, we want to help. Particularly if it means avoiding any more run-ins with ol' Pointy Teeth and Halitosis."

"I hope you die, Yagami!" shouted the girl named Ataru, spitting at him.

"Wait." Naruma put a finger to his lips, lips parting in a crooked grin. "They are helping us, remember?" He exchanged a knowing look with Ataru, whose rage suddenly subsided.

Taichi did not like that look. At all.

"Rina," Naruma turned to the girl at the center of this whole mess, who was still entwined in the arms of her two friends. "You're okay, right?"

"Yes," mumbled Rina, acting the rabbit again, Taichi thought wryly.

"Yeah, she's okay," he said loudly. "She only fainted, got a fever, and opened a door for a monster to attack Fuji TV's observation deck. Again."

Naruma turned his back to him. "Let's go," he commanded, and the rest followed his example without complaint. But as they headed toward the road, Rina peeked over her shoulder – at the Digimon.

Taichi flexed his fist. Letting them leave was the last thing he wanted to do, after Gennai had warned them to keep a sharp eye out for these kids. But they outnumbered the girls and him, for one thing (none of the Chosen would dream of setting the Digimon on these kids). And he'd really rather avoid a scuffle with a bunch of middle schoolers.

Besides, the conversation (more like series of threats) was headed nowhere. With Naruma around, even the kids less inclined to violence and spitting wouldn't dare divulge a thing. Better to let them go. Leave them with the illusion of victory, then approach each on their own, when they didn't have a whole swarm of comrades at their back.

Hopefully the monster frightened the rest of them as badly as it did Rina.

"Wow," commented Miyako, which summed up the situation pretty well, in Taichi's opinion. "That was kind of an unexpectedly Battle Royale moment there."

"Things could have gotten ugly." Hikari grinned as if she were joking, but it was true enough. She scratched her partner between the ears. "You sure gave them a good scolding, Gatomon."

Gatomon crossed her arms with a scowl, though she purred under Hikari's fingers. "Well, I do feel bad for them, but I can't stand that kind of entitlement."

"What will you do now?" Hawkmon asked from his perch on Miyako's arm.

Everyone looked at Taichi. His mind buzzed with ideas, each more outlandish than the last. He needed to focus, he needed a way to filter through the possibilities and string together a plan.

"We talk to Koushirou," he announced. Which was the most natural thing in the world.

* * *

** koshiro_han89: **They gave away zero hints as to what they're up to? Didn't you shake anything out of them?

** soccergami: **was trying to avoid shaking anyone if at all possible

** firehazzzard: **haha taichi-senpai when do you ever

** cerfvolant: **I can't believe they were that hostile towards you.

** ishida-wolves: **Gennai warned us theyd target us, didnt he. when that hosoda kid stole takerus d3 he said they all hate us.

** soccergami: **dam

** ink_and_quil: **wow, really? He seemed normal on the car ride home. Broody, but hardly a bull off the rodeo.

** koshiro_han89: **To summarize the facts we do have: The kids with Dark Spores are trying to get to Digiworld on their own. They've tried, and failed, to use our D3s. Now they somehow have the power to tear open a Gate to somewhere, if not Digiworld. At least one monster has come through that way. According to Momoji Rina-san, it's the only one, because "she's the first."

**koshiro_han89: **I suppose she means she's the first to try out whatever unorthodox method they're using. And we know they neither like us nor trust us. To some extent, they seem to hold us responsible for separating them from their partners. Furthermore, Gennai suggested that these kids are unwitting pawns of darkness.

** cerfvolant: **how poetic koushirou-kun

** cerfvolant: **That was Mimi-chan's message just now.

** firehazzzard: **you type like a freakin tornado koushirou be careful your fingers dont snap off

** koshiro_han89: **They've suddenly decided to get proactive the same time that all this turbulence hits Digiworld.

** soccergami: **im thinking not a coincidence

** koshiro_han89: **Same here. Gennai didn't know for sure, but maybe there is an actual entity communicating with them, directing their movements.

** ManekiGato: **you don't think Myotismon's back again do you?

** koshiro_han89: **At this point we can't know anything for sure. We have no data to suggest that beyond the involvement of the spores. It could just as easily be a new enemy, likely someone that can influence the Wall of Fire.

** firehazzzard: **cmon hikari-chan we gave malomyotismon a serious ass-kicking back in the day that mofo not coming back

** ManekiGato:** we thought we beat him the first time around too, but he came back. twice.

* * *

"Hikari." Taichi twisted around to look at her with an arm hooked over the back of his chair. His sister stood behind him, tapping into her D-terminal while Taichi commandeered the computer. The room was dark except for the desk lamp and the glow from their screens.

She answered him with a sigh. "I know. I'm trying not to let it get to me, but it's just – today, and with Wizardmon…"

He nodded in understanding. The last thing she needed right now was Myotismon's specter looming over them again. "Koushirou's right, though. We have no reason to think Myotismon's back."

"Even if he's not, that just means it's someone else… Oniichan, Koushirou-san's asking us a question."

"What? – Damn, you all write so fast." He turned back to the chat room.

* * *

** koshiro_han89: **Taichi-san, Hikari-san, you mentioned Kawada Noriko-san was with the group that approached you today? How did she behave? Specifically, did she seem as antagonistic as the others?

** soccergami: **not hardly. she even told kumagai the way he knocked into me was uncalled for. its not like she flew to our rescue, but she definitely wasnt backing kumagai.

** ManekiGato:** yeah, she was more or less the only one who didn't look like she'd love to skewer our eyeballs and eat them like odango.

** firehazzzard: **cannibals all

** cerfvolant: **Then it sounds like Noriko-san's our best bet if we want to try to convince these kids we're on their side. We do want that, right?

** soccergami: **absolutely we want that, but we also want to keep monsters from roasting tokyo, more than it already is. that thing, if it had the time, could do some major damage.

**koshiro_han89: **I have a theory about that monster. It certainly seems unlikely that a Gate would open right where three Chosen happen to be, while one of the kids with Spores turns up outside, without there being a connection. That may be what Kumagai-san meant when he said that we are helping them. They want us to notice when they open the Gates. Maybe just so we can take care of the monsters, maybe for some other reason. But only a few of those kids even live in Odaiba, so what were they all doing here?

**ishida-wolves: **Looking for us.

**koshiro_han89: **I think this is what Gennai meant when he said they'd target us. We need more information.

** soccergami:** then lets do what we shouldve done from the start. lets grab one of them when theyre alone and make them talk.

** cerfvolant: **youre going to scare the bejeezs out of more ltitle girls if you act like that

** cerfvolant: **That was Mimi-chan again, if you couldn't tell by the typos.

** cerfvolant: **omg sora-san you a meanie

** ink_and_quil: **If you think we should try to squeeze info out of noriko-san, then you should talk to iori-kun. They had a "tête-à-tête," he called it, three or four days ago at the drugstore. I call it the early signs of star studded romance but for some reason he disapproves of my phraseology.

** firehazzzard: **lmao takeru your killing me

** ink_and_quil: ***you're

** soccergami: **fine, leave that to me and koushirou then. we'll see if we can get noriko to come out of her shell a little.

** cerfvolant: **tai-chan like I said, scaring little girls = bad

** soccergami: **im not gonna scare her!

** cerfvolant: **Mimi-chan's right, though, one of us girls should go with you. Firstly because she is a jr high girl and you lot are nothing but a sausage fest. Secondly because some people inexplicably find us less threatening due to our marshmallowy bosoms.

** firehazzzard: **sora-san have i ever told you i love you becuz i do

** ink_and_quil: ***because

** firehazzzard: **stop

**koshiro_han89: **I concur with Sora-san, but if too many of us go I'm afraid that Kawada-san will feel like we're ganging up on her.

** ManekiGato: **was thinking the same

** soccergami: **alright, hows this: me and koushirou and iori-kun will go for sure, plus at least one of the girls

** firehazzzard: **PLUS DAISUKE

** soccergami: **plus daisuke.

** ishida-wolves: **plus takeru.

** ink_and_quil: **wait why do I have to go?

** ishida-wolves: **leverage.

**soccergami: **so six people. does that count as ganging up on her?

**koshiro_han89: **Yes.

** soccergami: **well, tough.

* * *

"'Well, tough'?" Hikari raised her brow. "Brilliant retort, bro."

Logging off, Taichi pushed back in the chair (which he forgot didn't have wheels and barely steadied before tumbling over) and stuck out his lower lip. "What am I supposed to do, Hikari? All six of us have to go. Maybe a couple of us can crouch in the bushes outside and eavesdrop, but other than that…"

_"You_ don't have to go," Hikari pointed out.

"Neither does Daisuke, but how you stop the Unstoppable Man is one of the few things in the universe I don't know."

She made an incredulous sound, but when he whirled around with his best Sibling Hierarchy Glare of Doom prepped, she'd bent over her D-terminal again. He guessed Takeru and Daisuke were still online. Suppressing a sigh, Taichi picked up her empty bowl of curry rice and stacked it with his own. As he carried them to the kitchen he remembered:

"What's Iori-kun's IM? In case I need to reach him that way?"

"You're such a tech geek all of a sudden. It's 'proonjoos.'"

"… Prune juice? Seriously?"

"Yeah, P-R-O-O-N…"

"Never mind, I'll call him."

But not tonight, because it was already after ten. Even though Iori was probably awake, his mother wouldn't appreciate a late night phone call. Taichi knew he could count on the junior team members who'd been online for the chat (Miyako had work and they couldn't reach Ken) to pass on the details of the plan to Iori, but still he wanted to talk to the kid himself.

Maybe he was being a bit controlling, wanting to go everywhere and be involved with everything. Hikari was right, he didn't have to go meet with Noriko. Koushirou could handle that on his own just fine, especially if someone like Mimi were there as well to guide him around Noriko's emotional cues. Maybe they should leave this up to Iori, Koushirou and Mimi, Taichi mused. But no, Yamato was right, Takeru should be there since they knew Noriko felt some guilt over what had happened to his D3. And if they tried to leave Daisuke out, he'd just worm his way in regardless.

And so would Taichi.

After all, he was, for all intents and purposes, banned from Digiworld. Anything that happened there, he had to stay out of or risk worsening his… well. The others sympathized. They knew from experience how hard that separation was. The senior team even understood what it felt like to watch someone else dive in and out, while their own digivices beeped in their pockets, frantic but useless on their side of the Gate.

Yet this hurt so much more than that.

_I'm a leader._ If he couldn't do what he did best – if he couldn't get right up in ol' Big Bad's face and sock him in the nose, then the least he could do was take charge of things here.

Besides, he couldn't bear this waiting around. They couldn't expect him to. Just look what happened not even a week ago. All because he'd been told to _sit _and _wait_ as if he were some helpless child who couldn't go to the bathroom on his own at night, let alone fight alongside his friends. He couldn't bear it, this – this –

"Taichi! You're home!"

His mother's voice chimed like a bell, stuttering him out of his mental circus, and for a moment he could only blink at her. Then his habitual smile slid into place. "Mom, hey. How was cooking club?"

"Wonderful! We baked a cake called Death by Chocolate." Yuuko held out a Tupperware container with four slices of over-frosted cake oozing chocolate and cream. As it happened, Death by Chocolate was possibly the tamest recipe Yuuko had ever brought home from cooking club (or, as it was more commonly known around the Yagami household, "Paula Deen's hellhole"). The cake might in fact be safe to eat.

"Any wheat germ in this one?"

"No, just the usual, flour and eggs." Yuuko's grin grew a bit mischievous. "I did think it needed a little extra kick to it, though. It's called 'Death by Chocolate,' after all."

_Damn, the cake is a lie._

"So let me guess, you guys summoned the devil and…"

"Stop it! You all need to stop teasing me about our really being a demon's nest." She waited a minute longer while he tried to puzzle out how she planned to ruin him for cake as she had for fish sticks. Finally she could take no more of her sluggardly firstborn, and cried: "Ghost chilis!"

"Oh _no."_ He already felt the urge to puke coming on.

"Oh yes!" Giving him a push, Yuuko steered him toward the counter. "And I'm not going to tell your dad until after he takes a bite. He deserves it after forgetting about the chocolate bar he left in his pocket until after I did laundry."

"Never mind. You didn't summon the devil because you _are_ the devil."

"Don't talk to your mother that way. After all the cakes I've ever made you!"

" – Counting the one you dropped on the floor on my twelfth birthday?"

She made a face. Then, with a tender look, the creases at the corners of her mouth smoothed. She reached out and hugged him, Tupperware and all. Taken aback by the abrupt shift in her mood, Taichi awkwardly rubbed her back with one hand and tried (why was he trying?) to keep the cake from squishing.

Getting up on her toes, Yuuko planted a kiss on his cheek. "You're hardly home lately. I miss your face."

He gave her another smile, this one genuine. "Just my face?"

"No. I miss the four inches you have on me too. Much easier to reach the spice shelf when you're around." She patted his cheeks. Almost eighteen or not, Taichi had to fight back the urge to lean into her embrace the way he had as a child.

_Thank God for mothers, _he thought, as she scampered into the kitchenette with the cake, chattering on about who knows what, about so-and-so's kid's Koushien tournament hopes, about the family dog her friend had to have put down. _Thank God for ghost chilis,_ he amended seconds later – for anything that drove off that feeling of constraint, of being tied on opposite sides by ropes that were forever shortening, sure to tear him apart if they didn't slacken soon.

* * *

**08.21.2006**

** MON**

In the end, the following Chosen composed Mission Interrogate Kawada Noriko (Without Scaring the Bejeezus Out of Her):

Yagami Taichi, or The Man Who Could Not Be Stopped  
Motomiya Daisuke, The Unstoppable Man (Jr.)  
Takaishi Takeru, Leverage  
Izumi Koushirou, Knows What's What  
Tachikawa Mimi, There For Emotional Support By Virtue of Girl Parts  
Hida Iori, Definitely Does Not Have a Crush  
(e.t.a.) Ichijouji Ken, Along For the Ride

When Daisuke showed up to their meeting place a block from Rainbow Park with Ken in tow, Koushirou buried his face in his hands, while the stern line of Taichi's mouth kept twitching as if unable to decide whether to laugh or chew their ears off.

"Seven people to take on one fourteen-year-old girl," was his only remark.

Daisuke got ready to defend himself, but Ken stepped in front of him. "It's all my doing, Taichi-san. If I'd been home for the online conference, I'd have insisted on coming no matter what. The Spores are more my business than anyone else's."

Taichi's eyebrows knit as if he wanted to protest, but how could he? Ken only spoke the truth.

"Sorry, Koushirou," Taichi said with a shrug. Koushirou responded with a soulful groan of defeat.

"Hey, this could work out in our favor," Daisuke insisted. He slid his arms through Ken's and snuggled into his back. "Now we've got brains and looks on our side. Maybe Noriko'll get an epic crush and spill everything to her darling Kenny-poo."

Ken's face turned so red it practically glowed.

"I'll take whatever advantages we can get," laughed Taichi, as Mimi came up behind him, hugging him around the waist a là Daisuke. Taichi reached back, snagged her arms, and set off with her toward the park while Mimi shrieked for him to _"let go, you ape_!" and kicked playfully at his shins.

Koushirou kept pace with the junior team members. "At least Kawada-san agreed to a meeting," he said. "Iori-kun, you made sure she thinks you're the only one coming?"

Iori gave a reluctant nod. "I'm still not sure this is necessary. It's deceitful."

"We tried to contact her directly," Koushirou said. "She hung up the phone every time as soon as she realized who was calling. When she's out she's always surrounded by other kids with spores."

"She's not exactly alone now," Iori pointed out as the reached the park gate. Daisuke followed his gaze to a bench on the other side of the soccer net, where two girls sat in a penguin-like huddle. One was Noriko, round pumpkin face on a matchstick body, that ever-present red barrette coming to be something of a trademark of hers. The other was a sad-eyed girl with washed out brown hair. Daisuke didn't remember her name. Both girls wore the sailor blouse and gray skirt of Nagakutsu Girl's Academy.

Iori took the lead now, the other Chosen trailing after him like odd colored ducklings through the quiet park.

As they approached, Noriko stood up solemnly. "Iori-kun," she greeted with a bob of her head.

Iori made a quick bow, his expression matching hers. "Noriko-san. I'm… this is…"

"I guessed more would be coming," she interrupted. "You guys keep trying to lure me out and all."

Iori's mouth opened in shock. "Then why did you –"

"If I didn't come, you would have just kept at it, right?" she demanded.

_Whoa, did not expect that fire from someone who resembles a lollipop,_ Daisuke thought.

"Or maybe you'd start in on one of the others. That's why I decided to meet with you, and brought Keiko-chan with me."

So that made the other girl Kurata Keiko, who kept her hands clasped over her heart and refused to look at any of them. She seemed on the verge of a panic attack. _Funny choice for a bodyguard._

"You're pretty gutsy," said Taichi, plopping onto the edge of the bench with a lazy grin. "Keiko-chan said you're something of a leader among you guys."

At the mention of her name, Keiko's shoulders stiffened. But his grin had its intended affect; Noriko seemed completely disarmed. "Well, as you saw the other day, I've got a rival in Naruma-san," she replied with a tilt of her head.

"That's rough. Is the group split?"

"Mostly over how we think about the Chosen."

"Us?" Mimi asked, gesturing with a finger to her friends.

Noriko nodded. "Naruma-san pretty much hates you. I'm… like I told Iori-kun, I'm not your ally, but I don't think of us as enemies either. I'm in the middle. Some of the others consider that wishy washy," she added regretfully.

"A leader should be decisive, but not so stubborn that they're closed off from new possibilities. You sound like a pretty level-headed person." Taichi had this way of talking to people as if everything that came out of their mouth was incredibly important, something Ken once termed _projecting vibes._ By making others feel trusted, he manipulated the atmosphere, made them more willing to trust _him._ It was hard to tell if this was just a natural talent of his, or if he'd made a conscious effort to hone it over the years; probably it was a mix of both.

Getting what he wanted from people didn't come so easily to Daisuke, who couldn't help but be honest when it came to his feelings. He wished he could emulate his senpai better. But Ken had said he liked Daisuke for just that reason, that he was all heart, so that was something.

Koushirou not-so-subtly gave Takeru a meaningful nudge with his elbow. "Kawada-san, the reason we're here is to ask you about how Momoji Rina-san opened that Gate at the Fuji TV building the other day," Koushirou said. "Last time, Hosoda Seiki-san took Takeru-kun's D3 to try to open a Gate, but it seems you've found a way around that."

While he spoke, Noriko glanced shyly at Takeru.

"I'm not mad about it," Takeru assured her. "I have it back now, that's what matters."

"Great job, _'leverage,'"_ Daisuke growled in his ear. Takeru batted him away.

Keiko finally lifted her head to watch Noriko. After a pause, Noriko let her arms fall to her sides. "We didn't exactly find it. We got an email that told us how to do it."

"So," Koushirou's eyes got big, "there is someone in charge, telling you guys what to do?"

She gave her head an emphatic shake that tossed her abundant hair. "Not in charge. The emails only started coming a few months ago. We don't know who sends them, but the general consensus is that they're from Digiworld. Maybe even from our partners."

That sounded fishy to all ears – Noriko didn't look like she believed it herself. After a moment she went on in an uncertain, halting voice:

"The first message told us that we still have the power to jump to Digiworld. It's been buried within us all these years. At first I thought, that's great, if it's inside us then maybe we can tap into it. But later I started worrying… the sender won't reveal who they are. What if they're using us the way Oikawa did? So I wondered if it meant our Spores weren't as dormant as we thought."

"They're not," said Taichi grimly. "Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but we got it from the biggest brain in Digiworld. He doesn't know what kind of effect they'll have, but the Spores are definitely alive."

Noriko let out a long breath. On the bench, scooted as far away from Taichi as she could get, Keiko shivered and gave a soft hiccup.

Daisuke frowned. "Last time, the Spores made you guys all angry and stuff. It could be because of the Spores that Kumagai and everyone are so pissed at us."

"No," said Noriko and Ken at the same time, before spinning around to stare at each other in surprise. "They've been like this for a long time, and Naruma-san's always had problems with fighting at school," Noriko explained.

"Besides, it doesn't make sense," added Ken. "The Spores give off negative energy. Most of us looked for an outlet for that energy by hurting others. But while the kids with Spores might be angry, they've actually got more reason to hope now. They might be able to return to Digiworld, they might get to reunite with their Digimon. When I was under the Spore's influence, I couldn't find _anything_ to hope for. All the things I did as the Digimon Emperor… I did them out of vain, sightless hatred."

As always, once Ken began to talk about his time as Digimon Emperor, he seemed miles and miles away. Reading people may not be a particular strength of Daisuke's, but even so he felt a chill at the thought that Ken and Noriko shared the same ghosts. Ken did not talk about _That_ very often. _That_ he kept locked away, in a mental safe buried under layer upon layer of coping mechanisms. But he'd had so many reminders this month. When Ken told Daisuke he wanted to come to the meeting with Noriko, Daisuke saw no reason why his best friend and teammate of many years shouldn't get a piece of the action, but now…

Now he was seized by an illogical wish to reverse time.

Keiko astonished them all by speaking up then, though they had to strain to hear her. "No one's fighting with their parents they way they did four years ago," she said, fidgeting with a strand of her hair. "Or their brothers and sisters, or their friends. Or obsessing over grades. We were all happier than when Oikawa gave us the spores, until those emails."

Her lip trembled and she reached up to cover her mouth. Noriko touched her shoulder. Prodding Taichi aside, Mimi climbed onto the bench next to Keiko and put a comforting hand on her arm.

"It sounds to me," Mimi began gently, "like as much as you want to be with your Digimon, the means make you uncomfortable."

"We don't _know_ why that monster appeared, not for sure," Keiko said, sniffling. "Only that Rina-chan fainted, and didn't make it to Digiworld."

"Which we were told was the most likely outcome, for a while," Noriko added. "It's supposed to take time to break through the noise that blocks our D3s' signals. But the monster and the getting sick, that's news to us."

"So you're not going to try it anymore, right?" Mimi frowned in concern. "After all, trusting a stranger, a stranger from a world that's tried to keep you out – you know how risky that is, right?"

"We _are_ going to try again. Yeah, it's risky, but sometimes you have to make sacrifices for what you desire. We all feel that way."

"But that's ridiculous – Noriko-chan, Keiko-chan, we understand your feelings, we've been separated from our partners and not sure if we'd ever see them again too. You have to think – you're letting _monsters_ in."

"No," Noriko retorted sharply. "You _don't_ understand our feelings. We're different from you, and that's why I won't be your friend even if I don't hate you."

She crossed her arms squarely over her chest and glowered, suddenly guarded again. Daisuke could sense her withdrawing, and knew their chance was as good as over. He barged in to make the best of it.

"So what you're saying is, even though you know bad things could happen – monsters, fainting spells, who knows what else – you're gonna keep at it and consequences be damned? No matter who gets hurt, even other people?" He'd lodged himself between Noriko and Keiko, thinking _divide and conquer,_ and Taichi and Mimi to his right on the bench were watching him supportively, while Keiko shrank back and the livid purple splotches on Noriko's face grew even splotchier.

But then Ken's arm shot out to ruin it all, as his best friend planted his feet in front of Daisuke so close that they would have been nose-to-nose, had Ken been less of a giant. "Don't," he said, in a tetchy, over-enunciated voice. "Don't yell at them. Advice is one thing, but I won't tolerate any pushing around."

Daisuke recoiled, stunned less by his words than by his eyes, twin shards of solid ice. "What's with you?" he snapped back after an unsettled moment, ignoring the hammer in his chest. "You're okay with them dropping more monsters around?"

"Of course not," Ken answered, "but it's only happened once so far."

"That they admit to! And even if it's the truth, you'd risk it happening again?"

"You can't expect them to trust us right away. We're just making things worse by prolonging this discussion. Noriko-san is right about one thing, you have to make sacrifices to get what you want. Even if it means we have to fight, we can only deal with it until they decide to open up to us."

"Ken, they're endangering themselves as well as other people," Taichi said, standing next to Daisuke. He sounded curious, not upset.

Ken held his gaze with some earnest ache creasing his brow. "Our goal is to offer friendship, not to segregate us further. Do you even have that goal in mind? Do any of you?"

A drawn out silence followed as Ken's question hung in the air. This was unfair, Daisuke thought unhappily. His insides squirmed. Sure they wanted to be friends, but they couldn't let the Spore Children put innocent people in harm's way. The kids might even hurt themselves in the process. This was why he hated fighting with Ken, because Ken could argue circles around him even when Daisuke _knew_ he was right. Like he was now. They were trying to preempt disaster for once, why couldn't Ken see that?

"Well, like Ken said, talking's not helping anymore." Taichi stretched and cracked his back. As he passed her, he clapped Noriko's shoulder. "Look, we may not like what you guys are doing, but if you do end up in trouble, you come to us. Any of you. Seems likely that we'll even be close by," he went on with a glance at Koushirou. "Kumagai mentioned something about how we're already helping."

That Noriko didn't push Taichi's hand away indicated she liked _him,_ at least (though Keiko, for her part, visibly leaned away whenever he came near). Her arms slackened a bit, but didn't unfold.

"That much I did want to tell you," she muttered with all the enthusiasm of a dog being shoved back into its kennel. "Because believe it or not, I don't want to involve other people in our affairs, or get anyone hurt. Naruma-san was talking about the email that told us how to use our D3s to open Gates. They can't on their own, unless we're near one of you."

Daisuke's eyes widened.

"Near one of us? Why would that change anything?" Takeru asked.

"Not so much us as our digivices, I'd guess," Koushirou said. "You're tapping into our digivices' coding to manually force open portals. That would explain why Momoji Rina-san opened a Gate at Fuji TV while Taichi-san and the others were there. Right?"

Noriko shrugged. "I don't really understand these things." She tapped Keiko on the top of her head. Springing up like a startled field mouse, Keiko latched onto Noriko's arm as Noriko marched homeward without so much as a parting look. The wind stirred their gray skirts with the long summer grass. Above, great bundles of clouds were moving in.

Daisuke could barely contain himself. "We are not just going to let them leave after that, are we?" he cried.

"We're just going to have to take our chances for now," Taichi replied, staring after them.

"I have to agree with Ken-kun, though I don't like it," said Koushirou. "You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar, as they say."

Takeru nodded. "We got so fixated on preventing more monsters that we weren't as understanding with them as we should have been."

"At least we now have an idea of _how_ they're doing it. A broad idea, but it's enough to work with. Prodigious, that they can tap into our digivices from a short distance. I wonder if ours are capable of that?"

Ken said nothing. Daisuke watched him, his stomach still roiling. He couldn't help feeling as if something in his friend had shifted, some irreparable change beyond Daisuke's realm of experience. He wanted to throw an easy arm around Ken, break the tension with a horrible joke about monsters in Tokyo, make it so everything would be alright. But he couldn't because they were in a fight now. The thought niggled at him that leaving Ken alone would be Very Bad, with Ramifications they wouldn't like. But they were in a fight.

_Perfect timing,_ Daisuke thought glumly, _right before my birthday._

* * *

**Chapter Notes:**

1] About the Spore Children: Kawada Noriko, Kurata Keiko, Yoshizawa Takashi, Shibata Hiroshi, Sasaki Yukio, and Kakudou Hiroko are all names that are actually written on the list of children abducted by Oikawa that Takeru gets from his mother. All other names are ones I made up, but_ don't freak,_ the only ones you need to keep track of are Noriko and Keiko, and Kumagai Naruma to extent. When and if other Spore Children become important, you'll have plenty of reminders as to who they are.

2] _odango:_ Japanese sweet dumplings.

3] Have you ever ruined an entire load of laundry by leaving a 3 Musketeers bar in your pocket because I have *_gross sobbing_*

4] _Koushien:_ A mega popular national high school baseball tournament that is broadcast on TV. (A few years ago I was on study abroad in Iwate Prefecture when a school from Hanamaki town participated in Koushien. It was practically the only thing anyone in Iwate talked about for a long time.)

5] Birthdays!: Like many fans, I have my own birthdays for our heroes, some of which are based in canon hints (Sora's, Miyako's, and I read something interesting about Taichi's), some which are entirely my own preference. I'm not going off any "fanon-approved" list, I'm just going to stick to what I like, and you feel free to do the same, kay? So Daisuke's birthday in this fic is August 22. Yaaay happy fifteenth birthday, Daisuke (or not, since he's argued with Ken).

_Guys, THANK YOU SO MUCH, I was totally blown away by the response last chapter. I was giddy for a week. I hope this chapter meets your expectations, though it kinda needs an edit... I have a headache, though, so I'll try so more later. I know we need more of Iori's POV here, he kinda got swept aside. I promise that'll happen next chapter! (And maybe some Ken goodness too!)_

_In the meantime, please review and tell me what it was like reading this chapter! I've been advised that if alpacas aren't possible, y'all can be bribed with baked goods. Who wants a cookie?_

_(Um, I'm slightly worried that the format got mixed up and squishy in the chat room bit... If it's too eyeball-destroying I'll see what I can do to break it up better. It's so readable on my compy but...)_


	17. The Big Picture and the Little Picture

_A/N: Hi kits! Have a chapter 17. I wavered about whether or not I liked it enough to post... but, anyway, here it is. Mangia!  
_

_I have a **request** if you would be so kind. If you review, could you tell me 1) Your favorite chapter(s), and 2) At least one reason why it's your favorite? If you don't feel like writing much, just mentioning which is your favorite will be fine. Of course, the more detailed, the happier I'll be. If you want to give a _least _favorite, I'm sure that would also be helpful._

_I am thinking about various things as we proceed, since we've gotten quite deep into plot by now. So if there are particular things you like, I hope to bring more of that to the table._

_By the way, a couple of you asked last time about Sora's birthday. I think I made a mistake when I PMed you. It looks like her birthday is set in the last week of Feb, or the first week of March - you could argue for earlier in Feb, if you think she and Taichi fought for a long time over that hair clip. I had said I thought the movie happened during the first week of spring break, but since the movie came out in the first week of March, I'm thinking it was probably just the weekend or something? If anyone has thoughts on this feel free to share!_

* * *

**Chapter Seventeen**

**The Big Picture and the Little Picture**

"_Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."  
- __Winston Churchill_

Along the digital plane, a storm was brewing. Mobile darkness churned and rumbled, great black thunderheads coiled and wove spewing lightning that danced over the nebulous tide. Someone walked an unseen path, stoking the fire, bare hands and feet exposed to the ash and burnt earth. He paused to wipe his palms on his jeans.

Funneling smoke roiled above, guiding the way to a vast, ink black sea. He noticed the leaping flames grow feeble and bowed, the blue heart no more than a faint flutter of sparrow's wings. Red it burned, red and dying. Meanwhile things stirred in the maritime world, the underwater king, his cursed disciples. Perhaps they would finally move, after all these years, the walker mused, without any particular interest. Of greater concern was the smoldering slash across the sky, like a comet's tail, almost a reflection of the string of fire below. It was the phoenix.

The god would not dare come any closer, and without coming closer he could not see much. Yet every so often the legendary bird took up this solitary watch. The walker did not know his intent, but perhaps he merely awaited the new sun. After all, the walker knew of nothing else to do until the day the blaze went out.

He sat down where he was. A voiceless blockade. His shadow cast the sea in eternal darkness.

Every day, the sun rose higher.

**08.22.2006**

** TUES**

The alarm staggered off the end table, buzzing like a cicada in spring. Daisuke's hand shot out to grab it just a moment too late. It fell into the gap next to his bed. With a groan, he forced himself out of bed and peered below, trying to find it among the piles of empty bags of chips and veggie sticks, crumpled assignments, candy bar wrappers rolled into little shiny balls…

_I am disgusting,_ Daisuke thought as he fished the clock out of a mountain of laundry. _I live like a pig. A _dirty_ pig. When's the last time I vacuumed ? Geez, and it wasn't that long ago Ken slept in here. I make my friends sleep in squalor. I should – ooh, are those my baseball cards?_

"Daisuke! Turn that thing off or I'll knock your head in!" shouted his dear, loving sister from her bedroom next door. What did _she_ care? _She_ got to go back to sleep, while he had to get dressed, find something to eat, and dash off to morning soccer practice. He loved soccer, but seven a.m. scrimmages were the bane of his summer vacation.

"Daisuke," called his mother, Kaori. She rapped on the door and peeked in. "It's 6:20. I thought you'd already be dressed by now. The team captain shouldn't be late! Hurry up, breakfast is on the table."

Muttering under his breath, Daisuke found a comb and ran it through his rough-and-tumble hair with five quick strokes. He strapped on his goggles, then raced into the bathroom with his shirt half stuck over his head and one sock dangling like a flaccid balloon off his hand.

When all his clothes were where they belonged, he finally made it to the kitchen. His mother set out a plate of eggs sunny-side-up with a tomato and lettuce garnish, and a bowl of miso soup. On the plate spelt in ketchup were the words "Happy 15th Birthday!" in curly characters.

"Good morning, my little man," Kaori said sweetly, bending over the counter to kiss her son's forehead. "Happy Birthday. Feel any different?"

"Sleepy," grumbled Daisuke, reaching for the pepper.

"You know," said Yoshinobu, Daisuke's father, from the couch where he sat reading the paper, "if this were the Meiji era, you'd officially be an adult by now."

"Do you see any samurai wandering around asking for directions to the bath house?" Daisuke retorted.

"I see a young warrior who's going to slay his high school entrance exams. Right, Kaori?"

His mother tittered in response. Daisuke stabbed an egg and a wad of lettuce with his chopsticks, crabby about being crabby on his birthday. It was supposed to be a fun day. A hang out with Ken, visit Veemon, eat cake with friends day. He could still do most of those things, but without Ken he just couldn't enjoy it.

He wondered what Ken was doing. Probably also getting ready for soccer practice at Seinanjou Jr. High. Ken got up early and always made it on time. Ken's room looked like the fairy of cleaning had been through with an army of mop-wielding rodent familiars.

After clearing his dishes, Daisuke glanced at the clock and realized with a jolt that he should have left five minutes ago. Abandoning his parents to bemoan his constant tardiness, Motomiya Daisuke, now fifteen, a few bits of rice caught between his teeth, threw on his shoes and ran out the door. He lost momentum while he waited for the elevator. At least these almost daily sprints against the tick of the clock were good for getting his blood pumping.

When the elevator doors opened, it was already occupied by none other than Taichi. He too was dressed for soccer in the green and blue uniform of Sanou High, a sweatband around his forehead and his duffel slung over his shoulder. On sight of Daisuke, his lips split in a smirk. "Hey, Daisuke! Congrats on surviving another turn around the sun."

"Thanks," said Daisuke, grinning for the first time that morning.

"So, you're fifteen now, huh. Catching up to me. Are those –" Taichi squinted at his face. "Oh my God, are those crow's feet?" he gasped, and poked Daisuke in the temple.

"Knock it off!" Daisuke swatted at his hand. "Seriously, as if this beautiful mug's got wrinkles."

Taichi laughed. His laugh was a loud, unbridled sound that threw his head back and made his shoulders quake.

"Are you late for soccer too?" Daisuke asked.

"No. Sanou doesn't start until eight. I have to catch the train, though, so I'm headed in early."

Sanou High was in Shimbashi, just a short ride on the Yurikamome train over Rainbow Bridge, and then a few minutes' walk. The school had an excellent reputation, managing to send a good number of students off to prestigious universities every year. Its sports teams were lesser known, but still respected. Just last year both the boys' and girls' varsity basketball teams made it to the regionals. Those stunning assets plus location made it a prime target for students in Odaiba.

Daisuke included. Though he couldn't say he especially relished the thought of high school. Playing higher level soccer, on a team Taichi had spent a year directing, with captaincy in mind for himself once he proved himself a stand-out among the players, was the strongest lure. And he'd be with his friends. Miyako and Koushirou would still be students there, and Takeru and Hikari had both settled on Sanou as their first choice.

But he didn't feel any excitement about leveling up. Books had never been his strong suit. His dream was still that World's Best ramen cart.

By the time he passed the entrance exam (or, he thought, more realistically, _if_ he passed), Taichi, Yamato and Sora would be getting ready for college. He couldn't wrap his mind around that.

"You're going to join the soccer team at whatever college you end up at, right?" Daisuke asked. Soccer was safe. As long as everything connected back to soccer, it felt less overwhelming.

"Of course," said Taichi.

"Got a favorite?"

"College team, you mean?" His senpai's brow furrowed. "Not really. You're supposed to go to college with an idea of what you want to do, in the future, I mean, for a job. For the rest of you life. I don't know what I want to do. Guess I might as well pick a school based on their soccer team, but…" His mouth slid in a lopsided tilt. "At the same time I have this feeling like it's time to grow up."

Time to grow up? Taichi had been student council president in junior high, and was a class representative now. He'd made captain of every soccer team he ever played for. He ran marathons. Came in first on the 600 meter dash during the last track and field tournament.

He volunteered. He entered speech contests. Even one in English, which did not go his way, as the judges (who could only have been dastardly time travelers from the 19th century) penalized for split infinitives, but Daisuke was impressed. He was at every school event. He got on with kids, with adults, with cats and dogs.

If _he_ wasn't grown up, _Daisuke_ would never get there.

"Do you think having a dream is what makes you an adult?" Daisuke asked skeptically, thinking of his ramen cart.

"Nah, I wouldn't say that. But… it helps, maybe, to have a goal and be working towards it. That's what gets you through the daily grind. Things stop falling in your lap when teachers and parents are no longer around nudging you into things. You have to reach out and grab what you want." All of a sudden he chuckled. "This is a funny conversation for us, isn't it?"

It certainly was. Daisuke did not wake up on the morning of his fifteenth birthday expecting to spend it by philosophizing about the nature of maturity with Yagami Taichi in an elevator. They were both wearing soccer shorts, which were notoriously – notoriously _short._ Daisuke was not sure it was allowed, philosophizing in soccer shorts. They might have flippantly disregarded centuries of tradition without even knowing it.

Usually the two of them talked about sports, movies – light, boyish stuff. They would try to one-up each other by telling the funniest joke. One way or another, they would end up on the floor in an epic tickling match that almost always resulted in someone banging their head on a piece of furniture. But this wasn't bad. In fact, it wasn't so different from talking with Taichi about Digiworld. Or, rather, listening to him talk about Digiworld.

Something warm swelled in his chest.

The elevator chimed and opened into the lobby. The two boys walked outside shoulder-to-shoulder (he was catching up to Taichi height-wise too, Daisuke realized smugly), and then faced separate roads.

"So, Johnny-come-lately, I won't keep you. Hope you've got something awesome planned for this afternoon," Taichi said.

The good mood that had come over Daisuke fizzed out in an instant.. "Not anymore," he replied, pinning a dour look on some garbage bins. "Ken and I still haven't worked anything out since yesterday. I tried to call and apologize, but he won't answer." He rolled a pebble under his shoe, the rising sun too hot on his neck.

Taichi seemed to consider him. "You two are still fighting over what to do about the Spore Children?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah," Daisuke admitted. "He thinks I'm being too harsh on them. Even though they're messing with Digital Gates, putting people in danger. He'll let them do it because he can't bring himself to tell them no." Suddenly angry, he kicked the pebble into the road. "Because he sees them as no different from himself, and he thinks he doesn't have the right to tell them what they can or can't do."

"Is that what Ken said?"

"Not in so many words, but he won't _talk_ to me about it, so how am I supposed to know? Taichi-senpai, I'm right, aren't I? About the kids with the spores?"

He turned plaintive eyes on Taichi as an unfamiliar desperation filled him. He wasn't sure where it sprang from. Guilt? Maybe he wasn't as sure as he thought? If Taichi would only tell him he was fine, he'd read the situation perfectly, he should take another stab at reasoning with Ken…

Taichi's brow grew thoughtful. "This reminds me of the big fight Yamato and I had back in the day. Well," he amended, "there were many, but this was a pterodactyl among ducklings. We were being hounded by the Dark Masters. I felt we needed to move faster, work harder, win before they had time to do any more damage. _Because_ of the damage already done. Yamato thought I was rushing in headlong, wasn't thinking ahead. Wasn't considering other people's feelings. He could tell our group was stretched thin and worried that barreling on would just mean more sacrifices."

"So who was right?" Daisuke asked.

"Both of us," Taichi replied. "There's a big picture and a little picture, and they clash sometimes. But the little picture isn't worth any less for its size, because the big picture is like a mosaic, made up of hundreds of little pictures. It can't exist without them.

"If we fell apart because I just marched us along without considering where people's hearts were, we'd lose. If we spent too much time hiding and looking out for ourselves, we'd lose. Victory means taking risks. But you can't take risks in a… risky way. Something like that. I don't know." He shrugged, eloquence gone in a flash. "On the other hand, maybe we're the ones playing it safe. Ken's taking a risk by trusting them."

That was all very profound, and Daisuke _got_ it, he did. He knew plenty about taking risks. He'd risked being friends with the former Digimon Emperor, which had saved their lives in the end. And his friends had doubted him. He couldn't blame them, but it still hurt.

He got it, which frustrated him. Profound statements weren't what he needed. A way to keep Ken away from _those kids – _why couldn't Taichi give him that?

"Not like it matters anyway," Daisuke mumbled, "since he won't talk to me. And now I'm gonna spend my birthday alone."

"No, you won't." Taichi grinned, pulling Daisuke in with one arm and anointing him with a ceremonial Birthday Noogie. "My practice ends at noon. Come by Sanou and I'll buy you a milkshake or something."

"Really?!" Daisuke blurted out.

"Geez, you're such a kid! Yeah, lumphead, _really."_

"Then it's a date!" He ducked out of Taichi's arms, feeling like he'd won the lottery. No Ken, but he got to spend the rest of the day with _Yagami Taichi._ Taichi, the guy he idolized to a degree that probably wasn't healthy. Taichi, with his big hair and stick-out ears and perpetually grass-stained knees, was going to _buy him a milkshake or something._

"Daisuke, is it okay for you to be _this_ late to practice?"

_Oh, shoot._ "Ok – gotta go – but don't forget – it's a date!"

From the corner of his eye he caught Taichi waving at him, and he gamboled down the sidewalk toward Odaiba Junior High.

* * *

"No." Takeru shook his head with a rare stubborn frown. "Absolutely not. I learn from my mistakes. Never again will I let you feed me your super special _curry picantisimo._ Last time I had indigestion for a week."

His brother's cocky grin went unfazed. "Seriously, Takeru, that was _four years ago._ My recipe's improved. Even Dad likes my curry now."

Yamato put the can of curry roux on the counter next to a couple bags of potatoes, carrots and onions. Takeru eyed it dubiously, as if he expected it to sprout arms and legs and murder them right there in Yamato's kitchen using his own knives. "Dad can't make anything but instant ramen, so he has to like your cooking or get kidney stones. Personally my guess is his taste buds gave up and died years ago."

"You're too young to be such a cynic. What would you know about taste buds anyway? You live off microwave bento."

"Not true," Takeru defended himself. "Sometimes I make nikujaga."

"My little brother's all grown up." Yamato threw a hand up dramatically and swooned against the counter. "He doesn't need me anymore. He has nikujaga."

Takeru rolled his eyes and reached for his cell. "If you want curry so bad, let's order take-out."

"That's a waste of money. Considering we have perfectly good curry right here."

"Perfectly lethal, you mean. Stop!" Yamato dove for the phone and Takeru yanked it sideways. Curry King was on speed dial, for which Takeru was eminently grateful in this direst of times. "Bad dog. Sit." With a roguish smirk, Yamato flung himself into a chair and folded his arms behind his head. "You have voice training soon anyway. Cooking will take too long, and Curry King's right down the street."

His brother muttered under his breath, which Takeru preferred to ignore rather than drag out this petty bickering. Much as he was enjoying Yamato's bout of playfulness, he'd come here for a reason.

That poem was playing tricks with his head. Every time he thought he understood something, another possibility popped into his head and he ended up back where he started. It frustrated him, and his house was just too oppressively quiet, like a stern-lipped school marm standing over him with her ruler poised. So he went to his brother's place, thinking he'd be able to crash wherever and at least have Yamato puttering around, making the occasional remark, to keep stress at bay.

"This last part sounds like a warning, doesn't it?" Takeru said after putting in their order and returning to his seat at the table to pour over his notes some more. As if inspiration would strike if he stared at them longer. _"'Seek you his soul, fettered in sin, and for your heart shall toll the bell.'_ So basically, if you look for this guy, whoever he is, you'll die."

"Heavy stuff, but I don't know where you see a death sentence," Yamato said, peeking over his shoulder.

"Because of the word 'toll' – that means this is a death knell. In old Europe, church bells were tolled when someone died to let everyone know. There's this quote from John Donne – here, I wrote it down –

"'_Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.'"_

"Creepy," murmured Yamato, which Takeru did not think was quite the right word, but his brother had been singularly uninterested in this whole business with the poem-prophecy. Takeru had hoped to find someone he could bounce ideas off. Hikari was at a meeting with the art club, and he hadn't gotten to hang out with his brother in a long while anyway, so there was another reason to visit. Yamato was always busy. _That's what happens when you're a senior in high school and trying to make it in the music industry._ Takeru understood that; he just missed spending time together.

But Yamato had some kind of grudge against this poem. He'd acknowledge Takeru's comments, sometimes with an indulgent "Ahh, mhmm," other times with no more than a grunt, but he kept moving around as if seized by some restless spirit – rearranging stacks of newspapers and magazines, opening and shutting the window, jostling the silverware in the hutch. He'd gone to his room and come back twice, wearing a different shirt. His long hair was a mess because he kept digging his hands through it as if brushes just weren't rock and roll.

It was almost as distracting as the constant silence at home. But Takeru supposed he had to live with it. Anyway, he knew Yamato wasn't too happy with Gennai right now, so he could kind of understand why his emotions were a mess.

"What's an 'effervescent well,' anyway? Isn't a well just a place for drawing water?" Yamato surprised him by asking a question of his own volition, though his tone was unapologetically mocking.

Takeru flipped through his notes. "Well: 'a shaft sunk into the ground to obtain water; a spring or fountain; in physics, a region of minimum potential'," he read. "As a verb: 'to rise to the surface and spill.' Effervescent pretty much means 'bubbling,' in both the literal and figurative sense. So, some kind of bubbling liquid? I guess it's meant to describe either the 'jar' or the 'child'?"

Yamato didn't reply, but his expression clouded over. His hand hovered close to his mouth as he frowned in thought.

Takeru was just about to ask him if he thought he'd figured something out when there came a knock on the front door. In a second, Yamato bounded out of his chair and flew at the door. Takeru watched with amusement. _Niisan's 'effervescent' today._

He wasn't sure who he expected his brother's visitor to be. Maybe Yutaka or one of the band. Yamato didn't hang out with most anyone else. But expected or not, it was Mimi. She wore plum-colored shorts and a white sleeveless top printed with fluttering butterflies. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders, bunched in the back with a clip shaped like yet another butterfly.

"Yamato-san!" She threw her arms around Yamato as she stepped out of her sandals. "How are you? I like that shirt on you, it's very Jagger."

Yamato gave his shirt a self-conscious tug. "Mimi, what are you doing here?"

"What, a girl can't drop in on an old friend from time to time?" Letting go of him, Mimi wandered into the living room. "I was in the neighborhood, and, you know, I'm going back to the States soon. I can't believe school starts next week." She pulled a face, but only for a moment. "Oh, hi, Takeru-kun! You're here too!"

"Yep," said Takeru.

Mimi dropped into Yamato's vacated seat. "It's just awful that we have to go to classes again by next Wednesday, isn't it," she complained.

A laugh tickled Takeru's throat. "You're saying that even though your summer vacation is a month longer than ours?"

"Yes! I can't help it! I'm so tired of school. All the pretending to care about what So-and-So Paragon-of-Humanity did and when. If it weren't for the spring musical, I'd wither away to a shell of my former self. Here lies Tachikawa Mimi, once a glorious rose whose blossoms brought joy to all, now a shriveled old thing smelling of mildew-covered textbooks and sloppy joe. If only we had forced less names and dates on her! In her final hours she kept repeating, 'Remember the Alamo – Texas Revolution, 1863!' She's never even been to Texas!"

Takeru had lost her somewhere around "sloppy joe," but interrupting would prevent him from keeping track of the series of expressions flitting over Yamato's face, each more flabbergasted than the last.

"Anyway," Mimi went on, deflating, "at least Yamato-san and all graduate in March. I've got to keep going until June…"

"Why are you here, Mimi-chan?" Yamato asked as he sat down. He offered Mimi a glass of water, which she accepted gratefully. "Not that you're not welcome, but where's Sora?"

"Sora-san is on a mission of Great Importance," answered Mimi in a conspiratorial whisper. "She's at Seaside Terrace having lunch with Jou-senpai. Testing the waters for me."

Takeru blinked. "Testing the waters?"

"Because you don't want to just jump in not knowing how shallow it is. If you just want to splash around and soak for a while, that's fine, but if you're going to dive in head first you have to be more careful."

"What she's trying to say, besides that she's hot and wants to go swimming, is that she's wheedled Sora into finding out how Jou feels about Mimi," Yamato translated, rolling his eyes.

"That's only half of it. I am comparing my previous relationships to shallow little puddles. Jou-senpai is a lake. An ocean." She beamed at them. "That's how serious I am."

"Cool," said Takeru, wanting to support her, but completely inexperienced with this kind of thing. When Yamato was dating Sora, he hardly ever talked about it to Takeru. It wasn't a secret – maybe Yamato just thought Takeru was too young. Plus he and Sora were both private people.

And none of his friends did much dating. There were one or two couples in his class, a handful in the whole junior high school. It often seemed like the same pool of students were always dating each other, trading boyfriends and girlfriends the way other kids traded baseball cards. Meanwhile the rest of them observed with mixed wonder and nausea, trying to imagine if that could ever be them.

Hikari had been asked out three times in the past six months. She never went out with anyone. She was a creature of habit and simplicity, who hesitated before anything that could throw a wrench in her peaceful life. Taichi, who was popular in his way, dated Touge Shioka for two weeks until their whirlwind romance ended with her smacking him upside the head with a ballet slipper (why, even Taichi claimed not to know. Sora had asked if he threw up in _her_ hat too). There was a tiny first year girl, Uesugi Misaki, who'd been trailing after Daisuke in the halls since April, but had yet to actually speak to him. (For his part, Daisuke seemed like he couldn't decide if he felt more flattered or humiliated by his Girl Scout of a stalker.) Ken got love letters on a weekly basis, but claimed he preferred to study. Both Sora and Yamato dated a few other people after their break-up, Takeru remembered, but no one stuck.

Even he, Takeru, gathered a few love notes and heart-shaped chocolates slipped clandestinely into his bag on Valentine's Day. But he didn't answer the letters and no one bothered to ask him out face to face. Probably because he was always with Hikari.

"How about you, Takeru-kun?" Mimi turned her shining eyes on him. "I know Yamato-san's married to his band these days, but you're in the bloom of youth. Is there anyone you're romancing?"

Heat flooded his cheeks. "No, definitely not," he said with a nervous laugh. "Maybe in high school, but not now."

"Really? Not even Hikari-chan?" She sounded disappointed, but he could only shake his head. It happened so often that he'd ceased to be surprised or embarrassed when people suggested he and Hikari should be dating. Still made his insides squirm, but he could usually shrug it off so that no one was the wiser.

"Well, Mimi-chan, I wish you," Yamato snapped his fingers and pointed both his index fingers at her, "the best of luck. I guess if you're comparing him to a puddle, you're not going back to Michael no matter what, huh."

"Michael is a lovely person, but we've been so on and off since junior high… I feel like if I go back again, that'll be it for me. I wouldn't be making my own decision, I'd just sort of be settling for what's comfortable. Which isn't fair to either of us." All of a sudden she jumped up. "It's alright if I use your bathroom, right? You don't have some special French hair gel you're worried I'll get into?"

Yamato wrinkled his nose and waved her in the general direction of the bathroom. As she ran off down the hall, Yamato turned to Takeru with a look somewhere between amusement and exasperation.

Takeru tried to hide his smile. "I think it's cute she wants to come over and confide in you. She must be really excited."

"She's a bundle of nerves," Yamato murmured back, leaning forward in his chair to make sure only Takeru could hear. "You know how she likes to count chickens."

"Count ch– you mean the unhatched kind? What, you think Jou-san will reject her?"

"I have no idea. But it's funny that Sora's going to meet with him about it, because she probably knows already. Jou tells her all kinds of things."

"Then," Takeru's brow creased, "that's a good sign, isn't it? If Sora-san knows Jou-san doesn't feel the same way, she'd let Mimi-san down gently rather than let her get her hopes up, wouldn't she?"

"Sure, unless she thinks Jou can be swayed. Look, I'm not saying that's what's going on. I don't know anything. But Jou, he's like a see-saw, decisions don't come to him easy. Sora's a fixer. And Mimi… Mimi sees what she wants to see. When she's after something, she dedicates her whole heart to it. That little speech about how Jou is an 'ocean?' She's coming on strong."

_Maybe too strong,_ Takeru's brain filled in. He'd heard from Miyako and Hikari about what had transpired between Jou and Mimi at Gennai's place… which, now that he thought about it, didn't seem like as much of a guarantee that they'd get together as the girls had made it out to be. As far as he knew, Mimi was the only instigator, and anyway it was just a hug.

Yamato folded his arms behind his head. "Besides, can you see those two as a couple? She'd drive Jou up the wall. He likes order and routine. She can't wear enough butterflies."

At that moment Mimi flounced in humming, so Takeru bit back his reply. Mimi immediately started playing with Yamato's hair, chattering on about how he should try dying the ends electric blue, to which Yamato replied he could never take fashion advice from Mimi ever since she burnt her own hair with a curling iron. That earned him a pinch of his ear, but she went on otherwise undeterred. All was well in the world of Yamato-and-Mimi.

If only he could say the same of the world of stanzas and iambs.

* * *

Years had gone by since Ken last had one of _those_ dreams.

Not the Emperor. The Emperor returned to haunt him whenever he damn well pleased. He couldn't escape the Emperor, but the other… The other he could never remember much of, only remnants, like the impression of damp leaves peeled off asphalt.

Last time he'd dreamed like this, he saw a memory of the day the Dark Spore entered him. Although, at the time, he hadn't known it was a Spore. Without Wormmon filling in the gaps _(huge_ gaps, as if his brain were spotted with sinkholes), he'd still have no idea what happened back then.

Part of him wished very much that he could remember the time he'd spent wandering Digiworld with Wormmon before Osamu died. As Wormmon told it, they'd gone on one or two heroic adventures themselves. Yet another part of him wondered if those memories weren't so much hidden as suppressed – because he feared what old nightmares might be lurking there.

His neck ached as he bent over to adjust his cleats. He'd managed to fall asleep at his desk again last night, having tried like a fool to log a few hours' study time before bed. Even though his emotions were in such a tangle. Of course, instead of algorithms, he could only think about the Spores. Which probably explained the dream.

He reached back to massage a knot in his neck and his fingers skimmed the base of his skull, the spot where he'd been "scanned" by Oikawa for his spore. A shudder ran down his back.

That spore was still in him. All Oikawa had done was make copies. He'd always been bothered by that, but four years ago, with his new friends and partners at his side, the desire to live rekindled, it was so easy to tell himself that the spore was dead, a husk, empty, no longer able to influence him. Without Arukenimon, without Oikawa, without MaloMyotismon controlling the spores, what power could they have?

He should have known better.

"Ken, what are you doing?" A hand clapped his shoulder – his teammate, Soujirou's. "You alright?" Soujirou asked with a quizzical tip of his head.

"Fine," Ken said automatically, plastering on a smile.

Soujirou looked unconvinced, but the two of them weren't exactly pals. He shrugged and patted the back of Ken's neck before jogging back towards the bleachers, where the team was gathering to cool down. Was it already almost ten? Ken looped an arm behind his head and stretched from side to side as he walked, trying to focus on the dull ache in his legs, lactic acid burning in his calves.

"Good work today," the team captain, Ryouta, was saying as Ken caught up with the rest of the team. "Defense was really strong in the last scrimmage. Nice job. I know you're all on break, but don't forget we've got a big game coming up not long after second term begins. If we push it, I really think we can prove Seinanjou soccer is a threat this year."

"We've got some all stars on our team, after all," added Coach Otsuzumi proudly.

Ken's face burned as Coach Otsuzumi nodded in his direction and several eyes turned toward him. His gaze instinctively dropped to his feet.

This was the main reason why he hadn't made many friends on the soccer team. Or in school in general. He'd thought, with changing schools for junior high, that he'd be able to escape some of the effect of his former reputation… he should have known better _then_ too. He'd been famous. A child celebrity – an icon of national pride. His sudden withdrawal into himself hadn't stopped the media from reporting all kinds of theories about what was going on with him, why he'd run away, how difficult life could be when you were smarter than everyone else. As he struggled each day trying to understand who he was, the magazine articles and blurbs on the news pushed him further into isolation.

Ichijouji Ken didn't belong to him. Ichijouji Ken was the boy genius all parents wished their children would emulate, whose inner crisis went from scandal to more padding for his biographies (biograph_ies!)_ which just loved to paint him as a hyper intelligent, troubled youth cracking under the weight of his own knowledge. It didn't matter that his grades had dropped since fifth grade – not that he'd lost his edge, but he did have _less_ of it. And it didn't matter that he'd stopped doing anything public, no chess tournaments, no Mathalons; even soccer, he'd kept playing on the regulars but turned over the captaincy (which had been nominal at best, since he'd hardly been around to captain) and reassigned himself to right midfielder, where at least he wasn't the most visible player on the field. (Center back would have been preferable, but Coach refused to let his shooting skills go to waste.) _Nothing_ helped; it took years of inactivity for the media to take the hint and quit loitering wherever they knew him to be, and even now he got the occasional phone call from a journalist who wanted to do a "profile of the child genius after his fall from grace." Just last week a writer had contacted him looking for subjects for her book project on the lives of prodigies. She seemed nice, less of a leech than the others, but he still told her no. He wanted to _forget everything_ but society just _wouldn't let him._

Plus Osamu had gone to Seinanjou. There were no students left who remembered him, but a few of the teachers did. And Ken sometimes wondered if, subconsciously, he didn't _want_ to make friends in this place where Osamu had been so well known. As if his brother's memory still lingered in the halls and classrooms, begrudging him every day he was alive that Osamu was not.

But he pushed those thoughts aside, telling himself firmly not to think about anything but stretching. Anyway, Coach was being ridiculous. For three years now Ken had been a team regular, bumped up at the start courtesy of his reputation even though he was only a first year, and yet Seinanjou never made it to the semifinals. Why people still relied on him after all this time, he couldn't begin to imagine.

He avoided the boys hanging out in the locker room and slipped out of school as if he'd just burgled the place right under the principal's nose. The din of their laughter made his heart heavy with a feeling somewhere between longing and disgust. He was suddenly seized with the urge to call Daisuke… but much as he might want to, the conversation that would surely ensue was one he wanted to duck out of for as long as possible.

Which meant he'd have to avoid his best friend on said best friend's birthday, and for that he hated himself a little more.

* * *

He was halfway home when they found him.

They were lurking beneath the awning of what had once been an offal restaurant, now up for rent and in sore need of a paint job. Ken walked down this sleepy street almost every day on his way home from school; he expected an ambush no more today than he had last Tuesday. But then they emerged in single file – six of them, four boys and two girls, and if he had any doubts of their friendliness, they were driven away at the sight of the crowbar one was carrying.

Ken didn't wait for them to make the first move. He bolted.

Their shouts followed him as they gave chase. The muscles in his legs protested more work after almost three solid hours of soccer practice, but even so, Ken was faster than they were. Relief rushed through him – _he was going to get away, they couldn't catch up – _and he veered sharply to the right into a wide alley…

… which led to a ten-foot barbed wire fence with a lock on the gate. Ken cursed under his breath. It was his own fault for darting off in a random direction. No way could he climb over that fence, and though he might be able to crack the pass code for the gate, it would take too much time. He'd just have to take his chances and go back the way he came –

But it was too late, even for that. They were here.

Kumagai Naruma leered at him, running his fingers up and down the crowbar in a menacing caress. As Ken backed against the wall, his brain scrambled to match names to the other faces: the sandy-haired boy was Hosoda Seiki, the other two the Urushibara twins, Tsuyoshi and Tsukasa, and the girls were Matsushima Ataru and Ariyasu Sumire.

Fat lot of good knowing their names would do him, though. Ken was taller than all of them, and yet he felt sure Naruma could tear him to pieces.

He raised his hands, palms forward. "Wait," he said over the incessant thumping in his chest. "We can talk about this."

Naruma's sneer widened. "Oh, we're going to talk," he answered. His voice was low, almost feral. He leaned his hand against the wall close to Ken's head. "Word got back to us about your little chat with Noriko."

"Word got back… aren't you all in this together?"

"Sure, but some of us are wimps." Naruma rolled his eyes. "Noriko's always been soft. I'm not gonna let her sabotage us out of some misplaced concern for what happens to you guys."

"She's not concerned about us." Ken swallowed hard. "She's concerned about the completely unrelated, innocent people who could get mixed up in all this and end up hurt. I understand why you hate us, Kumagai, but you have no excuse for involving _them."_

He choked on a gasp as Naruma jabbed the crowbar into his hip. Sparks flashed behind his eyelids and it was all he could do not to sink to the ground.

"Why don't you _get off your high horse_ for a minute," growled Naruma, "and let me fill you in on a thing or two. You want to talk about innocents? _We_ were innocents. We didn't do _anything_ to ask for this, but it happened. Why should we worry about who gets hurt? That's the way of the world. Someone wants something, so someone else gets hurt. Those're the rules, we didn't write them, but we're sure as hell gonna play by them."

"Please don't do this." Ken searched the faces of the other kids, hoping one of them, at least, would be more open to listening. Naruma – Naruma was so far gone. His anger rattled Ken to the core, a familiar, delirious pain. Hadn't he thought the same once upon a time – hadn't he chosen to hurt because he'd been hurt, hadn't he convinced himself that these were the rules of the game…

Tsuyoshi, Tsukasa and Ataru flanked Naruma on either side, snickering as their hot-blooded leader made another threatening gesture with the crowbar. No support there. Sumire hovered by the entrance to the alley, keeping look-out. Her expression was blank as a slate, arms folded loosely over her chest. Seiki had taken up the post opposite her, not once pausing to look in Ken's direction.

Ken felt horribly alone.

"Let's get a move on," Naruma called out. The others joined them, and Tsuyoshi and Tsukasa were on Ken in a minute, wrenching his arms back and holding him. "This is going to hurt," Naruma explained cheerily, before ramming his knee into Ken's diaphragm. The blow knocked the wind out of him. His knees buckled and he collapsed at the feet of his captors, surrounding him like so many vultures. They really _didn't_ care who they hurt, he realized through a haze. Naruma was _enjoying_ this.

Sumire was pulling a small PC out of her bag. Ken clenched his teeth, fighting back tears. "You are turning into the Emperor," he snarled. "Don't you get it, I am _on your side._ But I can't let you become monsters like I was."

"Should've brought duct tape for that pretty mouth," Tsuyoshi muttered to his brother, who snickered.

"It's ready," Sumire said, setting the computer on the ground.

"We don't know what's going to happen," Naruma warned. "It might go our way, it might not. If any of you want to wuss out, now's your last chance."

There was a pause, but no one moved to leave. A look of satisfaction spread over Naruma's face.

"Then let's do it."

Tsukasa and Tsuyoshi hoisted Ken up by the arms. Then Seiki was reaching for the D3 latched to Ken's shorts.

"Still stealing other people's D3s, Hosoda-kun?" Ken glared at Seiki's blond mop as he struggled against his captors. Sympathy had finally deserted him; he felt nothing but contempt for these entitled brats. "Thought you'd mended your ways."

Seiki raised his head briefly. A look of uncertainty flashed in his eyes. But he unhooked Ken's D3 and only hesitated for a moment before passing it to Naruma.

With a grin of triumph, Naruma snatched up the D3 and pulled out his own. The others did the same. "Here we go," said Naruma, and aimed the D3s at the computer screen.

Searing light burst through the alley, sputtering with wild energy. Ken tried to throw up his arms, remembering to late that they were bound behind him. All he could do was shut his eyes tight, and wait.

* * *

Sora absently stirred her iced coffee with her straw, gazing out the third story window of Pastellia Restaurant in the Seaside Terrace shopping center. She wished their food would come already so she'd have something do other than make chit-chat. It had been a long time since she'd felt this uncomfortable talking to Jou. Seven years, in fact.

Jou somehow sensed that this was more than just a date to play catch-up (not that she'd tried very hard to hide it. She loved Mimi, she did, but playing intermediary in this sort of thing left her feeling guilty, as if she were now complicit in however things turned out). Not long after putting in their orders, he shot out of his seat and announced he needed the restroom, and there he'd been for going on five minutes now.

Which left her all on her lonesome with nothing but the happy dancing omelette cartoon on the menu for company. At least he'd have to come back when their meals arrived, or end up eating cold, soggy eggs.

_I should just be upfront,_ Sora mused, letting go of the straw. _No sense in letting this hang over our heads when we both know the only ones who can resolve anything are the two of them. Mimi-chan is such a schemer._

Yet even as the thought crossed her mind, guilt stabbed at her. She should at least make an effort to swing Jou her way, shouldn't she? As Mimi's go-to girlfriend? _(Is that what you call a female wingman?)_

"Seafood spaghetti?" asked the waiter, appearing by the table with a tray. Sora raised her hand and he laid a plate of steaming pasta with shrimp and small clams in front of her. He left Jou's tomato and cheese omurice on the opposite side of the table, and drew off just as Jou came slipping through the narrow aisles. He was _so_ tall, Sora thought with a fond smile. And so skinny. Practically two-dimensional.

"Sorry I took so long," he said as he fell into his seat. "I was…" He broke off with a sheepish glance at her as it seemed to dawn on him that whatever he'd been busy with in the bathroom counted as definite TMI. Sora just smiled again and laid her napkin over her lap.

Jou cleared his throat. "That shrimp looks good."

"Want some?" She pierced a curly pink shrimp with her fork and waved it in front of him.

"No thanks. Think I'll stick to my rice and eggs, things that don't have eyes."

"'Cause the shrimp would stare into your soul and drag you down to hell for eating it? Come on, Jou, you're afraid of something that's basically an undersea grasshopper?" She popped the shrimp into her mouth, tail and all. Just to gross him out, she crunched extra loudly.

He picked up his chopsticks and carved off a chunk of omelette. "I don't know how you grew up with a mother like yours and still don't have any table manners."

They went back and forth like this a lot, teasing each other more than squabbling. Once Jou had told her he thought it would be nice to have a sister. His brothers were so much older than him, and sometimes the pervasive tone of masculinity at home made it hard for a sensitive guy like him to not overreact when chastised. Which in Jou's case meant freaking out and locking himself in his room until he was no longer a sobbing, snot-dripping mess. He was under a lot of pressure at home from his dad. If he found it easier to be scolded by girls, or at least girls who were friends, Sora was very happy to play the role of his sister. But she couldn't vouch for how much he'd really enjoy having sisters. She was an only child, but it was normally just her and her mother at home, and that much _womanhood_ all the time drove her over the edge.

A lull in the conversation followed as they both played with the food on their plates. Sora twirled a few threads of spaghetti on her fork, let them fall, and scooped them up again. So much for being upfront. She couldn't even think of how to begin.

Just as she'd decided to put things off longer by asking after Gomamon (even though it would be redundant, since she'd been calling to ask after him every day, and already had this morning), Jou set his chopsticks down and leaned forward, an apprehensive pucker at the corners of his mouth.

"Sora-kun," he said, and she felt his knee bouncing erratically under the table. If she could see his hands, she was sure his thumbs would be twitching. "About Mimi-kun."

She nodded, fighting hard to hide her amazement that he'd broached the subject first. He opened his mouth and shut it, laying that grave look of unease on her, and the bounce in his knee ascended to his chin, which began to bob.

She gave up. "Yes, _about Mimi-chan?"_ she echoed, and he jerked back. Good thing too, or she thought he'd implode. Then he drained the contents of his glass in one go, and she thought, _For heaven's sake._

"OK, Jou, fine. _I'll_ talk about Mimi-chan. You listen and try not to hyperventilate, okay?" He nodded without hesitation, going pale, and tugged at his collar. "Alright. So. To put it simply –"

"She likes me, doesn't she," he interrupted miserably.

"… Um. Yeah."

He paled.

"Hey, don't do that. It's a crush, not a contagious disease."

"I don't get girls very well," he sighed, dropping his head in his hands. "Girls are not my area. When they like me, I don't know why, and I definitely don't know what to do about it."

Sora frowned. "Girl or otherwise, she's still your friend. And a person. The worst thing you can do is reduce her to this mysterious category of 'girl' which acts in unfathomable ways. What you're feeling is probably close to what she's feeling."

He dug his fingers through his hair. "What about Michael?" he asked after a minute.

"She broke up with him. Said he was getting serious about her, and she just doesn't feel the same way."

"If one person's feelings are stronger than the other's, the relationship is bound for failure, isn't it?"

"Well." Sora contemplated. "I mean, it's not ideal. But to some extent it's inevitable. Dating is all about chance, after all. Maybe you'll make a connection, maybe not, but you have to give it time. There's no map to your soulmate." She paused and searched his face. "What about you, Jou? What do you feel for her?"

For a moment she thought he wouldn't answer. Agitated fingers scrubbed at his brow with such fury that she wanted to yank his hands away and pin them on the table. _I don't think I'm doing this right._

Finally, still staring at his placemat, Jou said: "Actually I made a pro/con list about her last night… I guess that's weird."

"No way," she protested. "It's not weird. You're a practical person." At least the list gave him some semblance of control. When it came to matters of the heart, he'd probably find it less useful, but if it calmed his nerves then Sora was all for it.

Jou pulled out a scrap of paper that had been folded and folded over until it was the size of a Post-It. Moving some condiments to the side, he flattened the paper out in front of her, and pointed to each column. "Pros, cons. The ones that I think hold the most weight are highlighted in yellow."

Peering at the list, Sora tried her best to look casual. One had to admire his organizational skills (even if they did make her feel even more like she was at some kind of bizarro-world business conference).

The pro/con list presented for her inspection came as a surprise, but he was watching her expectantly, so she looked it over. Probably, she mused, he found it embarrassing to talk about his feelings out loud.

The list ran like this:

**Pros and Cons of ****Da Starting a Rela Going O****u**** Mimi**

**Pros**

1. She's already a friend.  
2. Talking to her is easy.  
_3. Makes me laugh._  
4. Makes me try new things.  
_5. Has a warm heart._  
_6. I like how I feel when I'm with her._

**Cons**

_1. Lives far away._  
_2. Is an extrovert._  
3. We aren't interested in the same things.  
4. She can be childish.  
5. Is almost never serious.  
6. Likes luxury but I'm a tightwad.  
7. There are plenty of more attractive, less socially inept guys out there.

"As you can see," said Jou, "there are more cons than pros."

"There's _one_ more," Sora objected, "and I refuse to even count the last one, about the other men in the world who you think are better than you. She likes _you,_ Jou, so _they_ are a non-issue." When he didn't seem convinced, she decided to press. "Do you think she'll run off with someone else the minute she realizes you're you and not Johnny Depp?"

"She left Michael."

"Because everyone finds the love of their life on the first try, right? Come on, Jou. Give her some credit. She knows you, she knows there are other guys beside you, and she still likes you better. You're just making excuses to worry. Anyway, this is what I meant about taking chances." She let her gaze fall to the list again while he struggled with that. "Why is 'extrovert' a con?"

"Because she's got all this energy – she's always going some place, meeting up with someone, she's never still. And I'm not. Energetic, I mean. I'm very still."

"Well, okay. Though I think that ties in with 'makes me try new things' on the pro side. So does 'we aren't interested in the same things.'" Sora tapped her chin. "The bit about money can be difficult…" Both she and Yamato tended to be frugal, but Sora's second boyfriend, Ryuusei, threw money around as if the apocalypse were imminent. When Ryuusei wanted to take her to a spa, or buy her some expensive jewelry, she'd always turned him down, saying she appreciated the offer but felt too awkward accepting so much from him. Which always set him off whining. Needless to say, they hadn't dated long.

"I'm glad the things you pointed out as most important in the pro list are how she makes you laugh, her warm heart. This list is pretty good, but you realize it's kind of missing the point, right? All these things – she can be immature, yeah, she won't often be serious, but that's how she makes you laugh. To me, the most important one is number 6 in the pro list: 'I like how she makes me feel.' In the end that's going to matter more than anything else, don't you think?"

He gazed out the window in silence. Maybe she was pushing too hard.

"It would be long distance, at least until she graduates," she said in a gentler voice. "I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I just don't… I worry that you'll reject her not because you really don't like her, or don't want a relationship, but because it's just easier to stay like you are."

Jou nodded slowly. He stretched his arms over his head, looking more like a noodle than ever. A love-worn noodle. "Yeah. I see what you mean. Thanks, Sora-kun. You always tell me things straight."

A quality that got her in trouble sometimes, but Jou was one of the humblest people Sora knew. (_At times too humble,_ she amended, thinking of con item 7.) She could be frank with him and he'd always appreciate it.

He could be good for Mimi. As she could for him. Up until now, Sora had felt pretty ambivalent about Mimi's chances with him… but suddenly she hoped, she _really_ hoped he'd give it a shot.

"Don't mention it," she replied. "You know I love you, Jou."

Coloring up, Jou flashed her a crooked grin and picked up his chopsticks. "You love everyone. Ugh, my omelette's stone cold. I hate cold eggs…"

Shaking her head with a chuckle, Sora dug through her handbag for her cell phone, which had been buzzing on and off throughout their conversation, but she hadn't wanted to answer and disrupt the flow. It was Koushirou who had called, but her voicemail was empty. She dialed his number while Jou grimaced at his eggs.

"Hey Koushirou-kun, sorry I missed you earlier. What's up?"

"Trouble," Koushirou said grimly. "On the news they just reported an immense black fog that has settled in part of Tamachi. It's identical to the one Taichi-san and the girls saw last Friday."

Sora shot to her feet, rattling the table. "Monsters?"

"Not that I've heard of yet, but we've got to get down there and investigate. But I can't get hold of anyone else. I'm at Daiba station right now, but the bus for Tamachi left before I got there."

"Jou and I are already over the bridge. At Seaside Terrace in Shimbashi. Send me the map, we're on it."

Jou watched her thoughtfully as she fumbled for her wallet. "What did Koushirou say?"

"We have to go." The bills slipped through her impatient fingers as she rushed to yank them out. "Those kids with the Spores have done something again. In Tamachi. Koushirou-kun can't find anyone else, and he's stuck on our side of the bridge."

Jou stood. "Should we go pick him up first?"

That hadn't occurred to her. They'd come out in Jou's car (well, his father's); buses and trains could eat their dust. "You go get him," she instructed at last. "I'll find this cloud."

"Sora-kun, I can't let you go on your own."

"We need Koushirou-kun," she said. "And Koushirou-kun needs to know what's happening out there. I can take care of myself. Besides, Ken-kun lives in Tamachi; I'll try to meet up with him." She held up a hand before he could say anything else. "You can drive me as far as the bus stop, then we'll separate."

She intended to be very stubborn about that.

* * *

It was all Daisuke could do not to skip on his way to Sanou High. Practice had sucked – first Coach Iwahana had chewed him out for being late (surely if Iwahana had spent the morning with Taichi, he'd have been just as reluctant to say good-bye), then Seijun had kicked a ball right in his face (Taichi definitely had better control of _his_ kicks), and _then_ Aoi and Riku wouldn't stop laughing at him for tripping over the bleachers… though he guessed Taichi would probably laugh at him for that. (It _was_ kind of funny.)

Oh well. Even team captains were allowed off days. At least he'd finally perfected that feint, the one none of the other junior high players could pull off.

And Taichi owed him a milkshake, hence the twitch in his feet that wanted to launch into Irish dance. A milkshake with Taichi beat lackluster soccer practices any day.

The Sanou campus was huge. It had to be to support a student body that was 950 strong, some of whom boarded in dorms. Practice was just finishing up as Daisuke found the field. He came here often enough that some of the players recognized him. Horiuchi Kaoru, who'd been a senior player at Odaiba Jr. in Daisuke's first year, and Ukyou Touya waved at him from the bleachers as they gulped their water bottles. Touya cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled over the fence.

"Hey, Motomiya! Come to meet your boyfriend?"

"Ukyou-senpai!" Daisuke whined, the tips of his ears flaming. "Can you just tell him I'm here?"

Touya gave him a thumbs up as Kaoru capped his bottle, already shouting at Taichi. "Yo, captain!"

Daisuke's grin widened as Taichi glanced away from the conference he was having with the other forwards. Taichi lifted his arms and gesticulated wildly in the air. From such a distance they couldn't see each other well, but Daisuke understood the hint. He walked a few paces from the field to a nearby bench under a maple tree and plopped down to wait. He entertained himself by imagining what it would be like when _he_ blazed down that field, a star in his own right, and if Taichi showed up at his games no one would call him Daisuke's "boyfriend."

Unless Taichi really _was._ His boyfriend.

The thought lit up his ears again.

A buzz at his side shook him out of his daze. He reached into his bag for his D-terminal and flipped it open. _One stored message,_ read the screen. Daisuke pressed Download. Then the reflection of twin red eyes caught his attention, and the D-terminal tumbled out of his hand as he jumped up and whirled around. He knew what it was before he saw it: one of those monsters that those damn kids unleashed, see, this was why Ken should _listen_ to him, instead of being kind, those kids didn't deserve it if they were willing to put others at risk –

He swallowed a yell as the monster stretched its arms. Grasped in its claws was an uprooted post box. Daisuke's mind raced. If that thing fell on him, he'd end up with a few broken bones. He was caught between the tree, the fence, and the monster. There was nothing else for it – he dove madly to the side, fast, not fast enough; the post box landed squarely on top of him.

"Taichi –!" Daisuke clenched his teeth against the pain in his ribs. "Aaugh –" he gasped as the monster stamped a foot on him. Dammit. Hikari had said the monster that attacked her had been almost incorporeal. _This_ one most certainly wasn't. And where was the cloud of darkness it brought along? What a disappointment.

Not that any of that would matter if he died here, which, as a string of drool trickled over his shoulder from the monster's jaws, didn't look too unlikely.

He had to get out his D3, had to get Veemon.

But the monster leaned his weight on the post box, and the dark stars of pain beneath his eyes didn't go away this time. He felt himself blacking out. _Dammit, Ken,_ was his last conscious thought. _If I die before we make up, then I..._

* * *

_ETA: Yesterday when I wrote that last scene, I very stupidly decided a post box just wasn't heavy enough, and switched it to a vending machine... I've been kicking myself all day for that. People have died from vending machines falling on top of them ;_; I never meant to kill you Daisuke... sorry *cough* anyway, clearly I've changed it back to post box. Going for just a smidge of realism here hahaha._

**Chapter Notes:**

1] Entering high school in Japan is a lot like getting into college in the U.S. You spend a good year prepping for exams, then you sign up to test for various schools over a period from January to early March (known as "examination hell"). Students generally test for at least one safety school that they know they'll pass, and also shoot for more prestigious schools. Entering a prestigious high school is the best way to get into a prestigious university. And senior high students go through an even more intense examination hell when prepping for college entrance exams. A lot of third years, both in junior highs and seniors highs, quit their club activities for some or all of the year in order to do more studying (I think some schools actually require this), but since I can't imagine Daisuke/Taichi without soccer, they're skimping on the books a little. ;)

2] _nikujaga:_ Basically just meat and potatoes and some veggies in a stew. Simple and delicious.

3] _Any man's death…:_ From John Donne's _Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions,_ "Meditation XVII"

4] _Sloppy joe:_ We eat this with much trepidation and disdain in American school cafeterias (at least, in my day we did). What's it made of? _No one knows._

_Thanks for reading! Don't forget, if you would like to be MY HERO and leave a review, let me know what your favorite chapter thus far has been! Yamato has volunteered to make his special _curry picantisimo _for everyone who participates._


	18. In Which No One Knows What They're Doing

_A/N: Ta-daa! It's a Chapter 18! Woohoo, bring on the can-can girls!_

_ PLEASE NOTE: If you read that Daisuke got smashed with a vending machine last chapter, THAT NEVER HAPPENED. It was ALL a DREAM. Forget you ever heard such a thing! He was smashed with a post box, of course._

_ (in all seriousness, I think Daisuke would probs DIE if he were hit with a vending machine, and I am not enough of a masochist as to try to incite the wrath of Dai-Daisuke fans.)_

_ Also, thank you to everyone who responded to my request last chapter (& of course, thanks to all of you who reviewed period, you squishy little Pikachus!). It was really interesting to read your replies. I'll be keeping them in mind as we go on!_

_ And now... chapter 18!_

_ Minor characters: Spore Children; Yamato's bandmates (Michishita Yutaka, Mizuno Akira, and Arai Takashi); newbies are random classmates._

* * *

**Chapter Eighteen**

**In Which No One Knows What They're Doing (But All Things Considered They Do It Well)**

"_The goals we pursue are always veiled. A girl who longs for marriage longs for something she knows nothing about. The boy who hankers after fame has no idea what fame is. The thing that gives our every move its meaning is always totally unknown to us."  
- __Milan Kundera,_ The Unbearable Lightness of Being

**08.22.2006**

** TUES**

** Sanou High School**

_"DAISUKE!"_

At times like these, thinking was a luxury. Taichi's legs broke into a run as if on autopilot to reach the crumpled form under the maple tree, his duffel abandoned in a swirl of dirt by the locker room door. Instinct alone threw him over the wire fence dividing the soccer field from the campus lawn, the blood in his head pounding, eyes darting from the spot where his friend had fallen to the hulking fiend that bowed over him with smoke curling from its nostrils.

Most of the soccer team was still indoors, but Touya and Kaoru had been hanging out near the fence, and managed to beat Taichi to the tree. Together the two of them were lifting the post box off Daisuke's chest. Then Toyomizu Seiichi, Taichi's second, appeared at his elbow.

"Shit, is that Motomiya?" Seiichi sucked air through his teeth like a hiss. The wind didn't so much as bend the stiff, gel-packed blond spikes in his hair. "How the hell did that happen? Is it raining post boxes?"

Taichi stared at him in disbelief, then glanced back at Touya and Kaoru. The monster was _right there_ beside them, but neither made any move as if they saw it. It had been the same in the beginning, Taichi remembered, with the Digimon. The creatures Hikari saw on the television; Ogremon leaping from building to building in Odaiba. Debris from smashed windows fell all over the street, but no one saw what caused it. Only a few could see the Digimon before Myotismon opened the interdimensional door.

It was far too early to discern if this monster's invisibility was a boon or a curse. But those claws could clearly hurt them. Somehow he had to get the beast away from here before it found a vending machine and decided to pelt them with that. Which would mean leaving Daisuke, but he saw no other choice.

He clapped Seiichi's shoulder. "Take care of Daisuke for me."

"Wait, Taichi, what are you –" Seiichi gaped in amazement as Taichi tore straight past the boys grouped around Daisuke and into the street.

The monster cocked its head. Picking up the first thing he found to use as a weapon, which happened to be a clay pot of peonies from someone's garden – whatever, he'd used worse – Taichi hurled it at the monster's torso. The pitch fell short and the pot smashed like a jigsaw puzzle at the monster's feet. Well. He played soccer for a reason.

His assault by flower cannon (which worked so much better when Lillymon did it) at least managed to get his unsavory friend good and angry, though. At him. Excellent. Now it would be a cinch to keep his friends out of danger. If only he weren't surrounded by noisy, overcrowded _city_ on all sides.

_I'll just have to pick a direction._ There was a hectic fraying to Taichi's thoughts. _Better avoid the highway. There might be more space at the harbor._

"Hey, beautiful!" he shouted at the monster. "Why don't we go on a date, you and me?" He lifted his digivice high, the sun glinting off the flat of the screen. "Okay then, my lovely... thistle, follow me!"

With a snarl, the monster lumbered after him, its broad, stomping feet leaving cracks in the pavement. If it chose to fly, Taichi didn't know how he'd escape going down its gullet. Smoke puffed from the monster's snout as it followed, and Taichi bet all his hopes for living to see eighteen on his new friend having bricks for brains.

* * *

**Tamachi**

The darkness suspended like a canopy over Tamachi thinned out in increments as Sora made her way through street after street. At first the eaves of old shops and the awnings of new ones all but disappeared in the dense fog, and the grass and leaves were dullish gray, as if their color had been sponged up and wrung out. Now the air seemed to be clearing, which she guessed was a good sign, but a hundred what-ifs niggled at her.

Worse, her electronics had ceased to work the instant she entered the dark cloud. Her cell phone, mp3 player, D-terminal – all dead, leaving her with only her digivice and solar-powered stopwatch, neither of which could send messages. On top of that, the last email she received from Koushirou before losing power had been less than reassuring:

**Everyone:**

** Ran into difficulties contacting Gennai. Something's causing heavy interference. No word on our partners yet.**

** Please stand by.**

** Koushirou**

So not only was she was cut off from the world, she couldn't even count on Biyomon to come to her rescue. If she ran into a monster she'd just have to chuck the tampons in her handbag at it or something.

It really was a phenomenally stupid decision to stay out here without a contingency plan. She'd have turned back if it hadn't been for the blinking pinprick of light which had appeared on her digivice not long ago.

_Where are you, Ken-kun?_ Perhaps, in exchange for their faulty electronics, she could tap into her latent telepathic powers. Jean Grey had always been her favorite X-man, and they were both gingers.

The light on her digivice hadn't moved once since she'd noticed it. Made tracking easier, but if the light did indicate Ken, why was he staying in place? He might be hiding somewhere with a monster boxing him in. He might be unable to move – hurt, even unconscious...

_Or he could be perfectly fine, taking cover in a safe place and trying to contact the rest of us. Maybe he hasn't even noticed there's a problem._ She doubted the last was true – even if Ken couldn't see outside from where he was, he'd always been so sensitive to negative auras. Anyway, his Digivice should let him know.

Shaking the rampant theories from her head, Sora checked her digivice again. Close. Almost on top of him.

Darkness lingered more thickly in the air down a nearby alley than elsewhere. As Sora stopped near a decrepit offal restaurant to get her bearings, her gaze fell on a gardening spade leaning against the side of a house. A lousy weapon was better than no weapon (and at least it beat tampons). Cautiously she crept towards it, stopping to peer through the window in case the homeowner was about.

But no one was there to see her. The streets up till now had been abandoned too. She'd taken note of it, assumed the unusual fog had compelled people indoors... but she realized with a jolt that she hadn't passed a single other person since getting off the Tamachi-bound bus.

Like her cell phone, like the colorless plants, everything else in this little patch of city seemed dead.

A chill ran up her spine. She gripped the gardening spade and chanced a peek down the narrow alleyway.

Fog and silence. Her heart thumped loudly. Whatever was down there – if indeed anything at all – she'd just have to –

Something touched her shoulder.

_"Hnnnaaaugh!"_ Sora shouted, jumping around with the spade thrust in front of her, her war cry reverberating off the walls of the alley. Her attacker jerked back almost fearfully.

"Sora-san, don't! It's me!"

"Ken-kun," Sora breathed, gaping at him. He'd toppled backward and half-landed on a rusty crate. "Why did you sneak up on me like that?"

"I wasn't sure if it was you at first," he answered between pants. He kept a nervous watch on the spade in her hands. He was still in his soccer gear, Sora noted, and he looked a little worse for the wear, ashen face giving a certain gauntness to the hollows of his cheeks.

"Could you put that away, please?" Ken asked, wrinkling his nose at the spade as if he expected it to strike out fangs-first like a python at any moment.

Sora blinked, realizing she'd kept the spade firmly in attack position between them, and blushed at her own energetic reaction. She'd been on such high alert that it was difficult to lay down arms. But a spade in the gut was probably the last thing Ken needed.

"Sorry," she said, swinging the spade behind her, but not letting go of it (all those months in Digiworld had taught her the one thing you never do is assume the danger's past just because the sky's blue again). "What happened to you? I've been tracking your digivice and it didn't look like you were moving. I thought you'd been hurt."

"Well..." he said wryly, clutching his side. But he seemed to decide against elaborating. "I got knocked out when this dark energy field appeared. Only came to a couple minutes ago, and your signal on my D3 was the first thing I saw."

"Dark energy field?" Sora glanced around. By the look of things his description was apt enough.

He nodded. "I suspected it when Hikari-san and the others told us about the strange atmosphere that fell over them last time a monster came through, but I didn't want to scare anyone until I knew for sure. This fog is a bit of the World of Darkness seeping through."

"You're sure?"

"It fits. These kids all have spores, like mine. The creatures that come through when the dimensional gates open are not Digimon, or if they are, they've been corrupted. Plus the feeling I get is the same."

"Hikari-chan didn't mention anything about sensing the Dark Ocean."

"Maybe she didn't want to worry anyone either. Or maybe she's not as sensitive to it anymore."

Sora frowned. Something didn't sit right with her, but she couldn't put a finger on what. Not that it mattered what world the atmosphere came from – it shouldn't be there.

"Have you been in touch with the others?" Ken asked. "There were six monsters that came through. None of them stuck around for long."

"You saw them appear?"

"I was ambushed by Kumagai and his cronies. They used my D3 to open the vortex, but they've all fainted. I saw the monsters leave before I passed out too."

Sora stared at him in alarm. "Where are they now?"

He pointed down the alley. Spade in hand, she dashed toward the other end, and almost stepped on the laptop propped open on the ground. Around it lay the six Spore Children, sprawled on their fronts or on top of each other, completely unconscious.

This was Sora's first time meeting any of these kids face-to-face since the battle in the World of Wishes four years ago. She knelt down next to one of the girls and hefted her into her arms. The girl's face was flushed with fever.

"They're all alive," Ken said from behind her. "I checked pulses and everything."

"You did good, Ken-kun," Sora replied softly.

The girl in her arms had silky dark hair, even longer than Noriko's. Her bangs were cut straight across her forehead. Everything about her was neat, precise, from her pressed shirt to the starched white of her knee socks. Sora wondered if she also had a refined, sometimes overbearing mother at home who'd made her practice tying her school ribbon for an hour before she was satisfied it was symmetrical.

"That's Ariyasu Sumire," supplied Ken.

"And the others?"

"Kumagai Naruma, of course." Ken nudged the unresponsive boy with his toe. "And Hosoda Seiki. This girl acts like Naruma's right hand – Matsushima Ataru. And these two are brothers, Urushibara Tsukasa and Tsuyoshi."

"All of them are Spore Children," Sora murmured, gazing at each of them in turn. Her throat tightened. They should never have attacked Ken, but it broke her heart that they tried so hard yet Digiworld remained closed off to them.

"Koushirou-kun said he's having trouble contacting Gennai," she told Ken. "I lost power in all my electronics when I came to Tamachi. You and these kids are the first people I've seen, too. Somehow we're not affected by this atmosphere – or 'dark energy,' whatever – like everyone else."

"Those monsters are out there in the city."

"Right, so first things first. We have to get these kids out of here."

"Sora-san," Ken began on a dubious note.

"I know you're worried about what those monsters will do, but we can't just leave the kids here. If this fog really is coming from the World of Darkness, then it can't be good to expose them to it any longer, can it?"

He couldn't argue with that, and Sora had a feeling he didn't want to either. But they were still left with the problem of how to move them. The two of them couldn't carry all six.

"We need Jou," Sora said. "Or, we need his car, anyway."

"Where is he?"

"He went back to Odaiba to pick up Koushirou and any of the others who're stuck there. But it's not far, and he was planning on coming to Tamachi to join me right after."

"Then one of us should go look for him, or try to find a spot where our cell phones will work. You should go, since he'll be looking for you," Ken suggested.

But that frazzled look hadn't left his eyes. He seemed closer to falling apart with every second he spent near the Spore Children. Keeping her voice casual, Sora said, "No, Ken-kun, you go. I'm too worried about these kids. Jou knows I wanted to find you, he'll have an eye out."

Ken looked visibly relieved. "Sorry," he said, already edging back towards the main road.

"Wait, Ken-kun, take this." She held out the spade.

"What about you?"

"No problem. If anything happens, the label on my tampons says 'guaranteed protection no matter what you're dealing with'," she smirked, giving her handbag a confident pat.

He nodded vaguely. "... I'll leave the kids to you, then."

"They'll be safe with me," Sora promised. She watched from the corner of her eye as he left, pretending to check on Sumire, and let her head fall once he was out of sight. A sigh collapsed her shoulders.

_Something's seriously bothering that one,_ she thought. _Daisuke-kun's right to be worried._

_... I wonder if Ken-kun knows what a tampon is?_

* * *

**Asakusa**

As Hikari chewed her sandwich, she heard a voice call to her as if from some distance away: _Look down!_

She did so instinctively. The Odaiba Jr. High art club had swarmed the seventh floor lobby of a small shopping mall to keep cool, and spread out their lunches over benches and around vending machines. Hikari sat with a group of friends on the ledge of a tall window overlooking the streets of Asakusa, where the club had come to work on a photography project. As she peered out the window, the shadowy streak that bounded from one street lamp to another made her suck in her breath.

"Hikari-chan?" asked her classmate, Chikako, as she struggled to slice a piece of cold chicken with her chopsticks. "What, do you see a cute boy?"

"Looks more like she's seen a ghost," giggled Asuka.

"Ooh, Hikari-chan's got a boyfriend." Toshiya let out a long whistle, tripping over the group of boys he'd been eating with to squat beside Hikari. "I bet I know who it is. That pottery seller on the corner there. I bet you like bald guys."

"He's got to be over fifty," Chikako objected.

Hikari tuned them out. She pressed her nose into the windowpane, unable to find an angle that was not super awkward to get a better view of the thing she did not actually want to look at. At the same time, she knew she wasn't wrong. That voice still tickled her mind: _It's here._

Moving her bento box aside, Hikari pulled her backpack into her lap and groped for her D-terminal. Her inbox was full to brimming. _10 new messages,_ read the screen, most from Koushirou, one from her brother warning her to be on alert, and another from Takeru saying he, Iori, and Mimi were now trooping off to mainland Tokyo. She scanned through them, heart sinking lower still.

At least one monster had touched down in Shimbashi, and somehow injured Daisuke. No one else could see the creatures, so Koushirou was attempting to track them. But he couldn't reach Gennai and had no idea what to do next.

Hikari typed out two messages.

To Koushirou:

** I found one in Asakusa. I'll keep an eye on it until we have a way to get rid of it.**

And to Daisuke:

** Are you okay? Text me back so I know you're not lying in a ditch somewhere leaking brains!**

Then she stuffed the D-terminal back in her bag and wrapped her bento box in its kerchief.

"You're not going to eat the rest?" Chikako wondered as Hikari began to walk off.

Hikari gave her a smile before turning to wave at the club leader, Hanasaka Miuna. "Miu-chan! Sorry, but I have to leave early."

"That's okay," replied Miuna around a spoonful of yogurt. "Can I download the pictures you took first?"

"I can't, I really have to go," Hikari said as she opened the door. "I promise I'll email them to you as soon as I get home."

Leaving the field trip early was a disappointment, but at least they were about done taking pictures. She would only miss the concluding meeting.

Deciding the stairs would be quicker than the elevator, Hikari raced down all seven flights, wishing her bike weren't parked at Daiba station across the harbor. How could she tail that monster through the flush of people who thronged Asakusa every hour of the day?

She heard shouting outside, and ran into the street in time to see a huge television on the side of a building suddenly go dark. Cracks were visible over more than half the screen. As she watched, the monster vaulted into the air to strike the screen, shattering more glass which gravity brought to the ground in a cloud of glittering mist.

_Guess I'll follow the path of destruction,_ Hikari thought grimly.

* * *

**Ueno**

"God, Yutaka, did you let your two-year-old nephew at these?" Akira wrinkled his nose in distaste as he rifled through the sheets upon sheets of music that Yutaka carried around loose in his guitar case. "You could at least get a binder or something."

"I'd never use it," Yutaka replied with a cheeky smirk. In spite of the cramped space of the café's backroom, he lay stretched out on the floor with his arms tucked under his head.

"Might make your life easier, if you organized a bit, ever think about that? You could actually find all the music for a song, in order, without wasting half an hour every time making me go through your stuff."

"I gave you a binder," Takashi said from behind the unassembled pieces of his drum kit, spinning on the stool and absently tapping his drumsticks together. "Remember? For your birthday."

"Yeah, wasn't it lime green or something?"

"It was blue."

Yutaka frowned. "Well, it was ugly anyway. You can't expect me to remember something like the color of some binder. Binders are for teachers and snub-nosed over-achiever preppies. I'm an _artiste;_ clutter's part of my image, makes it look like I've just got too many ideas in my head all the time. Besides, you know Akira-chan would sulk if he couldn't indulge his maternal instincts by looking after me."

"Even I have better things to do with my time than look after you," Akira grumbled.

"Speaking of sulks, what ails you, Mr. Sourpuss?" asked Yutaka, as he rolled over towards the foot of the seedy couch and batted at Yamato's leg. "You're like Winnie the Pooh and his little black rain cloud, only not as silly-willy."

Yamato ignored him, chin cupped in his hand as he fixed a look at the Exit sign above the back door. Of course, Yutaka couldn't tolerate a deliberate rebuff.

"Hellooo," he sang as he pushed himself off the ground. "Yamato. Yama-chan. Stop spacing out or I'll be forced to rearrange your collection of guitar picks."

He began to drape himself over Yamato's shoulders. Standing abruptly, Yamato pushed him away and made for the door.

"Where are you going?" Akira asked.

"Just out."

"Coming back, right?"

Yamato threw a glare at him over his shoulder.

"Just saying, we're on in fifteen, you know."

_It's a lunchtime gig at a café, who gives a crap._ "If I'm not back by the time you finish sorting Akira's music out, feel free to ask the audience if any of them want to fill in as vocals."

He shut the door behind him without waiting for whatever response Akira came up with to that. They could chase him down if they wanted – wasn't like he had anywhere to hide – but they never did. They always gave him a wide buffer when he got like this.

Behind the café, Yamato leaned against the dumpster and lit a cigarette. It was 98 degrees and humid. Beads of perspiration broke out on his forehead in seconds. He breathed out slowly and watched the threads of smoke twine through the air.

Damn Komori and his coffee house scheme. _"You guys have a hip young following, but there's nothing to loose from gaining an audience among the older crowd. It's best to keep your name out there,"_ he'd said when he announced the gig. And then proceeded to announce several others of a similar type. As if the lunch crowd of overworked businessmen and harried secretaries would turn into Wolves fans and start showing up at their concerts. He could just picture it, the mosh pit full of middle-aged ravers who, instead of roses and bras, threw toupees and tubs of anti-aging cream on the stage. If anything, they'd be miffed that these rock and roll "punks" with their gaudy electric guitars were interrupting their quiet midday break.

Flatlining a show would not help band morale. But Komori's real purpose in scheduling them all these ridiculous engagements was obvious to Yamato, at least: he wanted the whole band together as much as possible – which is to say, he did _not_ want Yamato anywhere that the band was not. He wanted Yamato to prove his commitment. And the others hadn't gotten over him skipping out on Yoyogi Park a week ago, so Yamato guessed he did sort of need to. Though he didn't like being forced into it.

He took another drag of the cigarette and felt his nerves calm down, at least. Then from his pocket came the gravelly voice of Jim Carey:

_"You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch, you really are a heel..."_

Yamato pulled out his cell phone. "What's up, Taichi?"

"Same old, same old," answered Taichi. Yamato could practically hear the grin in his voice – though he sounded a bit winded.

"Did you just get out of soccer or something? You're breathing hard."

"Well, I've got this hot date, you see."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I'm taking her around town, showing her the sights. She's been... ow! Stop that. She's uh, got this dominatrix thing going on."

"... Just your type then, huh?"

"Yea – _ow! _I said _stop!_ Heel! Heel, you ugl– my precious pumpkin pie. Your teeth are like pearls, all – pointy – but I've gotten used to having my foot attached to my body."

Yamato rolled his eyes. A few times in the past Taichi had drunk-dialed him and bizarre conversations of the stuff of legend had ensued, but never in the middle of the day, when he should be at school.

"Taichi. Check precious pumpkin pie's breath. I think your 'hot date' is a stray dog."

"Dang, Yamato, that's some way to talk about your best bro's girl. She's definitely not a dog. Too tall for one thing, and, um, scaly. Breath reeks, though."

"Scaly? Taichi, tell me what's going on or I'm hanging up."

Then he heard something _growl,_ deeper and too bird-like for any dog, and Taichi let out an uneasy laugh. "Okay then, you remember that monster Hikari and I ran into the other day at the TV station?"

"You're with one of _those_ things!?"

"Yeah, it dropped a post box on Daisuke and started throwing a tantrum, so I had to lead it away."

Yamato scrubbed at the bridge of his nose. "You have a way of springing things on people in the totally wrong order. Where are you now?"

"I think we're still in Shimbashi. Not sure, though. Took so many back roads to avoid people that I lost track of landmarks, but I was aiming for the harbor. Luckily I found out this girl's got a weakness for bean paste buns when I threw one at her and she _licked her lips_ after gobbling it up. I didn't think these things _had_ lips. So I bought about a million buns from a street vendor and now we're camping out in an alley while I catch my breath. No one else can see the monsters, by the way."

"Thank goodness for small mercies. Fine, so you're okay for now?"

"Got a reject from Jurassic Park waiting to bite off my feet as soon as I run out of buns, but otherwise yeah."

"Who else have you called?"

"Haven't needed to, Koushirou's on top of everything. Sora and Ken are somewhere in Tamachi – that's where this all started, he said. There're five or six of these monsters hanging around Tokyo, so we're splitting up to hunt them down."

"And do what with them?"

"... That's what –"

The back door swung open. "Yamato!" Akira hissed, wearing a look of pure fury. "It's time to go on and you're not even tuned!"

"Shove a sock in it," Yamato snapped.

"Turn off the phone!"

"Akira, there are maybe twelve people in there, and two of them are falling asleep in their sandwiches. No one is going to care if we're five minutes late going on."

"And the writer for _Rock-It _magazine who took the time to come? Think he'll be so impressed with your laissez-faire disregard for time?"

"Then go tune for me, if you're so worried! I have to finish up here. It's important."

"Important?" Yutaka echoed, popping in the doorway next to Akira. He grinned and plucked the phone out of Yamato's hands. "I heard the Grinch song before. You're just talking to Yagami. Hiiii, Yagami!"

"Yutaka, give it back!" Yamato grabbed at his hands, but Yutaka whirled around and strode inside.

"Yeah, it's me, dude! Michishita Yutaka-sama! Your _faaavorite_ friend of Yamato's. How's life been? More interesting than mine, I hope. Though mine's been pretty fun lately. Yesterday I put a skateboard outside the laundry room and my ma stepped on it when she went to hang the clean shirts. Boy, was she peeved at me. Hit me with the broom handle. ... Yeah, parents _do_ suck. But I bet your folks are nice. _You're_ nice. You should come to our show! It's in... it's now, actually. Hmm, how about it? The Pomme de Joie café in Ueno. Okay, okay, Yamato, geez, such a phone hog. Don't be a stranger, Yagami, we wub you! _Mmwah,_ bye-bye!"

Giggling, Yutaka pushed the phone into Yamato's hands. Akira eyed him as he fiddled with Yamato's guitar, griping to himself, "Whether he's drunk or high, doesn't matter as long as he can play." Yamato ignored them and put the phone to his ear.

"Taichi?"

"Still here. What the heck is Michishita on these days? He thinks I'm _nice."_

"I don't know. Just forget it." Yamato sighed, almost wishing Yutaka would come back and harass him some more, just so he'd have an excuse to punch him. "So, monsters?"

"... You know what, we can handle it. You've got a gig."

"Taichi, come on –"

"No really, we've got it covered. I just thought you should be in the loop, and – I didn't think you'd have a show in the middle of the – I thought if you were free, you could join us, but we'll be fine without you. It's fine."

"These things are playing leap frog all over Tokyo," Yamato fumed, the taste of the cigarette in his mouth suddenly putting him off, "and you're worried about my gig!?"

"You missed Yoyogi to help me," Taichi reminded him.

"So what?" Yamato retorted, even though he knew exactly what, as the full weight of the bind he was in began to tug at him. He couldn't possibly go in there and tell Akira and the others that he had to drop out. Not again. Besides, if Komori found out he blew off another show, who knew what he'd do? He'd basically threatened to resign as their agent if Yamato didn't shape up for his role as band leader.

He raked back his hair. "... The show's only supposed to last an hour. It's just a stupid booking at a café. I'll play, break down the set, and catch a train to you guys as soon as I can."

"If there's anything left for you to do," Taichi said confidently. "But I bet we'll be done by then."

"Are you sure you're good without me?"

"Sure I'm sure. Even missing you and Daisuke, there are still ten of us. We outnumber them, and now that I've discovered their weakness for bean paste buns and pet names, we'll have them rounded up in no time. Ain't that right, my little oogy-woogy boo?"

"You have a problem," sighed Yamato as he ran his palm down his face.

Taichi might have made another joke, but Yamato didn't hear him. He said good-bye and ended the call. From the backroom, Akira yelled that he'd finished tuning and Yamato had better haul his ass inside or the owner's dog would get a shot at his guitar. After grinding his cigarette into the pavement, Yamato did.

* * *

**Tamachi**

It wasn't long before the kids came to. Sora was still sitting next to Sumire with her knees drawn up, tracing circles in the dirt, when the first began to stir: blond Hosoda Seiki. As he murmured a groan and rolled off his stomach, Sora crawled next to him. He cracked an eye open and looked at her.

"You're one of them?" he asked.

"If, by 'them,' you mean a Chosen, then yes," Sora admitted, hoping he wouldn't try anything. He didn't seem to have the energy. "I'm Takenouchi Sora. And you're Seiki-kun, right?"

"Yeah." Taking a long breath, Seiki levered himself off the ground and into a sitting position. His bleary gaze fluttered over each of his companions, over the dead laptop. After a minute, he sighed. "Did we at least get it open?"

Once again Sora had to extrapolate what he meant. Of course, the Gate. "Um, that's not really my area. Maybe Koushirou-kun would know. You opened something, though. It let in monsters. Six of them."

"One for each of us," Seiki said tiredly, cradling his head as if it pained him. "I kind of expected this to happen."

"Then why did you go through with it?"

"I thought I couldn't give up without trying. When I took Takaishi's D3, the Gate at the camp started to open... I should know better than to get my hopes up."

Sora looked down. "It must have been awful to get that close and be torn away." If Seiki had asked Takeru to borrow his D3 rather than stealing it, knowing Takeru, he would have said yes. Even if he didn't want to hand it over to another person, he'd have gone to the camp with Seiki and tried to open the Gate for him. The outcome would probably have been the same, but – but at least they'd be working together, instead of at odds.

She was trying to think of something else to say when Seiki stood up and took an unsteady step towards the street. "Hey, are you okay to walk?" she asked, following him. "You should wait here. My friend is coming with a car."

"We don't want charity from the likes of you." Sora jumped at the new voice. Naruma stood behind her, scrubbing vigorously at his temples. The others were waking up as well – Tsuyoshi shaking Tsukasa's shoulder, Ataru collecting the laptop. They seemed okay, no fevers, just headaches and a wobble in their legs.

But Sumire was still out cold. And Sora had checked her pulse earlier; it was worryingly slow. She struggled to keep her voice level. "Fine, if you're set on going, at least leave her with me. I don't know why she's so much worse off than the rest of you, but just look how pale she is. She's not walking anywhere."

"I don't take orders from you either," growled Naruma, glowering down his nose. Then he winced and touched his temples again.

"Shut up for once, Naruma," Seiki said. "Let's just get out of here. It's not like we can do anything for Sumire. Don't even know where she lives."

Naruma mumbled something under his breath. His body moved quite slowly. Ataru attempted to wrap her arm around his waist, but he brushed her aside. The five of them slinked away with sagging shoulders and bowed heads.

Sora couldn't say she was sad to see them leave. Aside from knowingly putting other people in danger, she was pretty sure they'd hurt Ken too, though Ken had been mum on the subject. They were upright, walking – her duty was done, she figured.

But that didn't mean she had to let them be stupid. She found the bottle of aspirin she kept stashed in her bag, then sprinted after them. _Who's least likely to just throw the bottle back at me?_ she wondered as she caught up.

Ataru. Sora didn't know anything about her, but the girl seemed genuinely distressed by Naruma's state. She probably wouldn't get rid of something that might help him.

"Ataru-san." Ataru frowned over her shoulder. Holding the medicine out like a peace offering, Sora gestured for her to take it. "For your headaches. This'll help."

"We already said that we don't –"

"– want charity, I know. This isn't charity, this is _empathy_. I get pretty bad sinus headaches. All I can do when one hits is take meds and steam in a hot shower. It's a total drag. So swallow your pride and take what I'm giving you, or you'll regret it two minutes from now."

Ataru gave her an appraising look. Her wavy auburn hair was disheveled and dusty. Under her eye her mascara had left a streak like a wayward pen. She would be a pretty girl without that sour expression, Sora thought. Finally she reached for the medicine. Without a word, she linked arms with Naruma and trudged off at the head of their little group.

_Maybe I should have tried to make them stay,_ Sora wondered as she adjusted Sumire on her lap. But if they decided to attack her, she wouldn't win against all of them. And they couldn't help deal with the monsters they'd let through. Would they try this again? Their spirits seemed crushed. If they did, it wouldn't be today.

Her thoughts turned to Biyomon. _I hope you're somewhere safe, Bi. Nothing would stop me from finding you if Digiworld tried to keep us apart, nothing. Baihumon could make me his chew toy and I wouldn't stop._

Another twenty boring minutes passed before Sora heard the crunch of tires over asphalt, and Jou drove up in his father's car, a squat Nissan Cube in need of a wash. Koushirou sat next to him in the passenger seat, and Ken was in the back.

Jou rolled down his window. "Okay there, Sora-kun?"

"I'm fine, but Sumire-san's got a fever."

Jou got out and crouched next to the girls. "She's a little overheated. Maybe it'll pass like it did with Momoji Rina-san, but let's get her to a doctor just in case," he said as he felt Sumire's forehead.

Together they hauled her into the car. The sight of the Spore Child sent Ken scooting all the way towards one side, so Sora resigned herself to the middle seat. After strapping in, Jou stuck his hand into a bag at his feet and held out a water bottle to her. It was probably cold when he bought it, but condensation had begun to sweat down the sides.

"For you and her. There are some paper towels in the back. Try to cool her down with a wet cloth. I'm gonna get us out of these back roads."

While the car reversed, Sora tended to Sumire, and Koushirou tapped anxiously at his laptop. "Sora-san, I thought Ken-kun said there were six kids with you?"

"The rest woke up and left. They weren't badly off. Only this one had any kind of fever."

"Would've been nice to question them," Ken muttered.

"Ten people wouldn't fit in the car anyway," said Jou. "We've got Ariyasu-san, so if you have questions, you can put them to her when she's better."

"Have you had any luck with Gennai, Koushirou-kun?" Sora asked.

With a pensive frown, Koushirou shook his head. "No, though it looks like Tamachi's getting a signal again, I'm still having trouble with the Internet. Haven't heard from Gennai at all. It makes me wonder if there's trouble in Digiworld as well as here..."

The idea that Biyomon might _not_ be safe threatened to overwhelm Sora all at once. But she swallowed the worry that immediately pressed at her, turning her attention instead to the glowing string of code on Koushirou's computer screen. "So what are our options?"

"Well, I'm trying to track the creatures that came through the vortex using a method similar to how our digivices keep track of us," explained Koushirou without glancing up as he typed.

Marveling, Sora leaned over his shoulder. "You can do that?"

A rosy hue tinged his ears. "I should be able to. I've been studying our digivices for years now, and Gennai's helped me a lot along the way. If I can take an imprint of their data, I can scan the city for others like it and home in on each creature's location. I don't know how exact the results with be, but we should at least get an idea of the general vicinity."

"If you say so." Sora grinned with unabashed admiration. She'd thought they were so far sunk, but as usual Koushirou was just underplaying his own genius.

"Hikari-san reported a creature in Asakusa. Taichi-san's got one in Shimbashi. I've been able to zoom in on those areas and pinpoint the creatures' whereabouts. What I'd really like is a piece of data from one to scan so I can find the rest without needing to look so closely."

Jou's hands tensed on the wheel. "I think you're about to get your wish," he said, staring through the windshield.

Already knowing what she'd see, Sora looked straight ahead as well. A long, dark creature soared above – though taking its size into consideration, it was more distant than it appeared. The creature was flying in loops almost playfully around a pair of apartment buildings, not causing any damage as of yet, but it was only a matter of time.

"Should we go after it?" Jou asked, voice dim.

"We don't have any way to battle it," Ken said, "but we can't just let it out of sight either."

"Let's do like I wanted and try to get a reading of its data," suggested Koushirou. "My program's already picking something up, but it's clouded by the interference from the dark energy field." He bit his lip. "Let's see if we can get a digivice into a clear area."

* * *

**Shimbashi**

"Looks like it's just you and me, buttercup," Taichi remarked after hanging up on Yamato. The monster continued to stare at him, as it did constantly since it did not appear to have any eyelids. It was like being watched by a very curious, overgrown gecko. Unnerving.

He rummaged through the plastic convenience store bag and tossed the creature another bean paste bun. It opened its enormous maw and gulped the bun down whole.

_If only a tasty Bambi would stroll by about now._ Taichi leaned against the cardboard boxes piled at the back of the dead end alley. He felt a twinge of guilt for offering the fawn up for slaughter, so to speak, but those buns couldn't keep Darling-Daisy's attention off of him for more than a few seconds.

A raspy laugh from the other end of the alley made both his and Little Sweetums's ears perk up. Three boys and a girl were ambling their way, a gang of teens in studded leather jackets, pushing their bikes and laughing raucously as the tallest boy stuck his tongue up his nose. Taichi didn't recognize any of them, but doubted there would be time for introductions based on the low growl rumbling from the monster's throat. So much for break time.

"Hey!" he shouted at the newcomers, jumping to his feet. "I wouldn't come down here if I were you!"

It took them a minute to react (he'd interrupted them right in the middle of trying to lick their own elbows), but then they grouped behind the tall boy, glowering at him with their arms crossed. The tall boy looked Taichi up and down and smirked. "What, are there ghosts?" he teased.

"Yeah." Taichi nodded. "This place is haunted. I'm cursed myself for coming in this far, but for you it's maybe not too late."

"You gotta be kidding me," muttered the boy, taking a deliberate step forward.

Sweetie-Angel-Cutiepie reared back on its haunches and let out a screech.

Taichi cringed, covering his ears. "Or maybe it is."

The teenagers did not seem any more conscious of the monster's cry than of its presence. But they could feel the breeze beat their faces as it flapped its wings, preparing to take off.

"Toranosuke, what is that?" asked the girl, pointing to the coil of dust springing up around the monster's airborne feet.

_Figures a flashy guy like him would have a name like "Toranosuke."_

One of the others shrieked. "It's a ghost!" he cried, flinging his arms around his friend.

"You'd better get out of here before it gets really mad," Taichi advised them.

Still they stood in the middle of the alley, bunched together and gazing straight ahead as if the "ghost" would suddenly materialize and hand them its business card. Then the monster dove.

_"Run,_ damn it!" cried Taichi, as he raced toward them and broke their ranks with a headlong lunge. They scattered, yelling, and Taichi didn't think twice about jumping on one of their bikes. He pulled a bun out of his bag and raised it above its head.

"Over here, baby, I know you want it!"

The monster looked at him only for an instant before turning back to the now terrified teenagers.

Taichi swore. "Come on, I know they look like a more satisfying meal, but think of all the hormones in them!" For good measure he lobbed the bun at the monster's head. Soft and doughy as it was, it didn't do more than splatter its snout in gory maroon paste, and at first Taichi feared the creature would brush it off and continue its pursuit of the hapless cyclists. As it snarled at him, Taichi waved the bag of buns and leaned on the bike pedals. It worked – distracted by one of its lunches making a getaway, the creature forgot about the other kids and loped after Taichi, who sped off on the bike in what he hoped was the direction of the harbor.

He pedaled hard into the street, and groaned. It was full of people, shoppers, tourists, businessmen returning to work after lunch. Every time a stretch of road cleared for him, it closed before he could move more than a few feet. And each of these pedestrians would entice the monster's stomach just as much as he did. He had to lead it down another back route.

A sign for a temple hung near the traffic light. Taichi swerved in its direction first chance he got. The temple would likely be concealed and mostly deserted. As long as the monster followed him that long...

He managed to lead it to the tall stone fence around the temple. It was hovering above him now, snapping at laundry fluttering off apartment balconies between screeches, but for some reason it did not attack. Maybe the crowds had it confused. Taichi didn't stop to wonder. He raced into the temple – empty as expected – and wove his way around an enormous maple tree, stone mounds of red-bibbed jizo, a pond full of calico koi and catfish. The monster trailed after him on foot now, swinging its head back and forth as if intrigued by its new surroundings, so different from the city. Taichi wondered if it would go after the koi. He sped through the grass to the rear of the temple.

The monster stalked around the corner and watched him, teeth bared.

"Go long!" Taichi flung the last few bean paste buns purposely a little too far. While the creature snaked its neck around to get at the treats, Taichi punched in a call to Koushirou, slumping over the bike as he tried to catch his breath.

"Taichi-san?"

"Koushirou, you have to have some kind of plan!" Taichi hissed. "I stole a bike and now I'm stuck at a temple with this brute, and I'm out of buns! I need a plan like five minutes ago!"

"I don't know what to do," Koushirou answered, sounding stressed, apologetic and wracked with guilt. "I can't get through to Gennai or open a Digital Gate. We're working on a program to find all the monsters, but that's the best I can do for now. At least we determined that they were let in by the kids with spores."

"So you know the cause, not the solution?"

"I'm sorry," Koushirou said brokenly, "I don't know what to do!"

"Okay," replied Taichi, "okay, calm down," though he wasn't sure if he was talking to Koushirou or himself. Koushirou didn't have a plan. _Koushirou_ didn't have a plan. Dammit, he'd just wasted those buns. Taichi supposed he hadn't been doing so badly on his own, but he was just winging it.

"Guess I'll try my digivice," he said. Though he'd tried it already as soon as he got the beast to follow him.

"I don't think they're Digimon."

"Well, if they can come into our world, they can get back into their own. There's gotta be _something_ we can do."

The monster had polished off the buns. It smacked its lips and circled around slowly, red eyes fixed on Taichi.

"Tell me what temple you're at, Taichi-san. We'll come pick you up. Maybe with a car we can lead them out of the city toward the rice fields –"

That was the moment the monster chose to charge. Stuffing his cell phone into a pocket, Taichi scrambled backwards and, since it had been working so well thus far, looked for something else to throw. There was only his soccer duffel. He heaved it off the ground and threw it. The monster knocked it aside as if it were little more than a speck of grit. Taichi tuned out its angry howl and kicked the bike into gear.

The temple sat on a steep wooded slope – at the bottom was probably a dump or a parking lot, but for the time being cycling down the hill felt like threading through a jungle. Invisible or not, the monster's great slashing claws managed to fell a few trees. The bike lurched as its wheels struck protruding roots and hurtled over uneven earth. Taichi clenched his teeth and tightened his grip on the handlebars.

He was out before he knew it, skidding on white cement near what looked to be the back lot of a warehouse. The creature came thrashing after him mere moments later. At the edge of the woods it leapt into the air, broad shadow falling directly over Taichi in the afternoon sun. Craning his neck, Taichi realized three things:

One, that he could not outrun the creature pursuing him.

Two, that he would crash into the warehouse if he didn't hit the brakes.

And three, that the clock pinned to the bike's basket was whirring and blinking, reeling through impossible phases – 26:15, 72:02, 00:93 – as if it were having some kind of digital tachycardia.

Taichi squeezed his eyes shut and let fate have him.

* * *

**Asakusa**

Hikari found herself at Kaminarimon again, after having spent most of the morning taking pictures in and around Sensouji temple. The people milling around the red trunks of the Thunder Gate were just as oblivious to the monster roosting above them as everyone else in Tokyo. For almost ten minutes Hikari had watched it, leathery wings unfurled as if it intended to take off at any second, but perched unmoving on top of the Gate, like a misplaced gargoyle.

She'd been waiting and waiting for a message from Koushirou or her brother telling her what to _do_ with the creature. Every time she saw that lonely zero under her inbox icon on her D-terminal, the little knot of worry in her chest constricted. It was wretchedly hot, the constant press of bodies blocking any wisp of a breeze, and the patch of shade she'd claimed below the awning of a small ceramics shop offered little relief. At least she had Takeru for a correspondent. He, Iori, and Mimi were making good use of the subway, searching outside each stop for anything unusual before jumping on the next train to wherever.

Even over IM, Takeru sounded as exasperated with their directionless mission as Hikari felt, but he only had words of encouragement for her. In his last text he'd written that he was now on the Ginza line, and would get off at Asakusa to join her. Just knowing he was coming and she wouldn't be alone lightened her heart.

Her charge abruptly bent its hind legs for lift off. _Back to work, _Hikari told herself, and got ready to leave her hiding spot. The beast broke away from the gate and flew low over the street, back into the city. As she chased after it, Hikari pulled out her camera, thinking if she could snap a few photos they might be of use to Koushirou later. That is, if the monster weren't as invisible to her camera lens as it was to the general populace.

After skimming the crowds and kicking up plumes of dust, the monster dove down Kaminarimon Avenue, which led straight to the Sumida River. Focused on taking pictures, Hikari ran headfirst into a passerby, the collision knocking both her and her camera to the ground.

"Sorry, I should have been looking where I was going," she gasped, mouth on autopilot. She made a hasty grab for her camera. The stranger tried to help her off the ground, but she pushed away from him just as quickly. "Excuse me, I've got to go!"

The monster had apparently claimed the entire river for its new toy. It glided close to the water, striking the surface with its tail to send up brief geysers which it nipped at like an alligator in pursuit of a fish. Each flap of its broad wings hammered the water like bullets, whipping the current with all the tumult of an ocean squall. While the creature was having its fun, a tourist ferry passed by the pier, unruly waves beating its sides. The riders who'd been viewing the city from the deck stumbled as the ferry was jostled to and fro. It wasn't in immediate danger, but each toss of the waves brought it closer to the creature, who paused in its wheeling antics once it spied the ferry.

Hikari ran out on the promenade and stopped at the water's edge.

Maybe it was just curious. There probably weren't many ferries in Shadow Creature World. Maybe it just wanted to get a closer look, to hear the hull cut through water... _to take a bite out of it, _Hikari thought, and winced as the creature did just that.

She heard screams and watched the ferry struggle to remain upright. The boat was already so close to shore that Hikari felt certain all the passengers would make it out all right, but only if the monster didn't decide it wanted a taste of them as well. What she needed was a distraction.

She pulled out her D3 and waved it in the air. Some of the onlookers who'd amassed to gawk at the limping ferry turned to stare at her instead, but she ignored them, watching as the beast curled around the ferry perked up and noticed her. Great – now what?

She started to run because she couldn't think of anything else to do, and because running from enormous monsters was what came naturally when you'd been a Chosen for half your life. Her arms jerked back and forth like a semaphore, the digivice clasped in her right fist, and after a moment of deliberation the creature abandoned the gutted ferry to chase her lure.

Only it didn't just chase her. It _pounced._ Hikari fell flat on her back under a gust from its wings as it swooped down on her, narrowly avoiding a clip by its teeth. She scrambled to stand up as no less than four people came over to ask if she was okay, and realized with a pang that nowhere was safe, the entire city was jam-packed with unarmed, unsuspecting humans, who were nothing but gnats before this otherworldly brute. Not that she was much more than a gnat herself, since all she could do that the rest couldn't was see it.

The only way she could go to avoid other people was up.

The beast darted after her as she rushed into the nearest multi-story shopping complex, intent on following her right through the glass doors. Hikari thrust out her D3 right in its face, close enough to feel its hot wet breath on her fingers. Light poured from the screen and the monster unleashed a howl and staggered back toward the river, clawing at its eyes. Hikari seized the chance to jump into the elevator.

It seemed to take ages before the doors opened on the plane of the roof. There were no stores up here, just a shed and a pair of vending machines. Hikari still had her D3 in hand. She went to the ledge with it raised, caught between hope that the monster was still too interested in her to resume its attack on the river, and anxiety over what she'd do if it was.

While she peered over the ledge, her phone rang.

"Hey, Hikari-chan, it's Takeru." Between her own whirling thoughts and the train station clamor on Takeru's end, she could barely hear him. "I'm at Asakusa Station. Where are you?"

"On a roof. A building near the Sumida River. Arcade on the first floor, teppanyaki restaurant on the sixth –"

As she spoke, the creature rocketed up the side of the building to hover in front of her. "Oh my gosh," she breathed.

This was her first good look at it. The creature's entire body was disturbingly emaciated. The sockets of its alien eyes were deep and dark. Rough, lusterless skin barely stretched to cover each rib, the ridges of its vertebrae, the sternum nub. Old blood crusted the base of its claws – at first she didn't know whose – then she saw the wine-colored discharge at its gums. That, at least, explained its rank breath.

"Hikari-chan!?" Takeru exclaimed. "What's happening?"

"It's here," she said, locked in the creature's stare.

"Oh _shit,"_ she heard him say, which gave her the incongruous urge to giggle –Takeru was usually too articulate for swear words. "Shit," he said again, and this time she couldn't hold herself back. "Okay, stay put, I'm trying to find you."

"Unless you have some brilliant strategy for playing Monster Round-up, you might just arrive in time to get eaten too," Hikari replied.

"Get out of there, quick!"

"If I leave, it'll come after me, and destroy anything, any_one_ that gets in its way."

She could not leave. But whatever would happen if she stayed wasn't likely to be good. The monster did not seem deterred by the fact that Hikari had about as much meat on her bones as a toothpick. The only reason it hadn't dug its fangs into her yet was because it was busy sniffing her. She watched its nostrils pulse – huge, dry-looking cavities.

Takeru's voice came across thick and pleading. "If you don't get away somehow, _you'll_ be destroyed!" She imagined him surging through the Asakusa streets, determined to get to the river and find her, obstructed on all sides by the unyielding wall of people. It brought a smile to her face. He couldn't do a thing, but he'd try with all his might.

She'd prefer it if he didn't get killed.

_You'd better get rid of it, then._

That voice again. The one that warned her every time one of these creatures appeared. She'd felt it scratching in the back of her mind, tried to write it off as just her sometimes preternatural intuition – and yet –

_Leave everything to me._

The D3 in her hand suddenly began to flash and vibrate, so fiercely that it shook Hikari's entire arm. The monster flinched and withdrew a bit, but an instant later it seemed to have made up its mind to attack, and flung its wide open jaws at her. The light amassed at her fingertips in a shining orb. As the monster sank its jaws around her, the brightness overcame all else, and Hikari, unable to see, or hear anything but a thin ringing, fell over for the third time inside fifteen minutes.

It was the absence of the monster's stench that made her aware that it was gone. Or rather, was disappearing. Bit by bit. As if weathered away by tides of erosion. All that was left was the disintegrating tip of its tail.

Her breath came hard and ragged. The sun on her face felt like a hot towel. She closed her eyes, the underside of her lids lit red, and waited for her stomach to settle.

As she put her head down and turned on her side, she felt as if someone were standing next to her.

But when she looked around, there was no one.

* * *

**Chapter Notes:**

1] _red-bibbed jizo:_ Jizo are Buddhist statues, carved from stone and often wearing red bibs (other colors and patterns are common too). They are protectors of deceased children, hence the bibs.

2] _Kaminarimon:_ the Thunder Gate, a famous landmark in Asakusa which leads the way to Sensouji temple.

3] _teppanyaki:_ What we in the U.S. tend to refer to as "hibachi," which is actually just a type of grill. These restaurants are for okonomiyaki and other Japanese-style fried food (so no, not fried Oreos).

_So, when Daisuke shows up next chapter, I'm sure there'll be plenty of griping over Why His Birthday Always Sucks And Stuff. Haha._

_I have two ways I'm thinking of finishing this arc – either wrap it up next chapter, move on to the end of summer and finally reach autumn (after five years! Winter Is Coming?). Or, move something I'd planned for fall to now, and draw this arc out a little longer. I am undecided but I will do my best! You awesome readers and your reviews give me strength! Youthful energy! Joie de vivre! *ack* My back cracked ;_;_


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